I kept them all winter in a paper bag from the A.&.P.–
At first where I was living then, on the West Side,
Until the next-door tribe of Murphys drove me out with rock’n’ roll,
Then at Thompson Street in the Village, where, overhead,
A girl and her lover tromped around all night on each other.

And that wasn’t the end of it. I shlepped those bulbs around
For two months from place to place, looking for a home,
All winter, moving, oy–although this was nothing new to me,
Coming as I do from a wandering race,
And life with its twelve plagues making me even more Jewish.

Now I am living on Abingdon Square–not the Ritz exactly, but a place,
And I have planted the tulips in my windowbox.
Please God make them come up, so that everyone who passes by
Will know I am there, at least long enough to catch my breath,
When they see the bright, red, beautiful flowers in my window.