My life’s on an even keel
these days. Though who’s to say
it’ll never waver again?
This morning I recalled
a girlfriend I had just after
my marriage broke up.
A sweet girl named Jean.
In the beginning, she had no idea
how bad things were. It took
a while. But she loved me
a bunch anyway, she said.

And I know that’s true.
She let me stay at her place
where I conducted
the shabby business of my life
over her phone. Shе bought
my booze, but told me
I wasn’t a drunk
like thosе others said.
Signed checks for me
and left them on her pillow
when she went off to work.
Gave me a Pendleton jacket
that Christmas, one I still wear.
For my part, I taught her to drink.
And how to fall asleep
with her clothes on.
How to wake up
weeping in the middle of the night.
When I left, she paid two months’
rent for me. And gave me
her black and white TV.

We talked on the phone once,
months later. She was drunk.
And, sure, I was drunk too.
The last thing she said to me was,
Will I ever see my TV again?
I looked around the room
as if the TV might suddenly
appear in its place
on the kitchen chair. Or else
come out of a cupboard
and declare itself. But that TV
had gone down the road
weeks before. The TV Jean gave me.

I didn’t tell her that.
I lied, of course. Soon, I said,
very soon now.
And put down the phone
after, or before, she hung up.
But those sleep-sounding words
of mine making me feel
I’d come to the end of a story.
And now, this one last falsehood
behind me,
I could rest.