the summer of 1988: Jeanne and Don
How We Ended Up Together
by Joyce Sutphen
He was good in an emergency, calm
in the middle of a storm. Accidents
didn’t surprise him; he was always
ready for whatever came along. You
could count on him; you could make
a deal and he would keep it, even if you
couldn’t. His deals were impossible;
his deals were meant to make you fail,
and failing you found yourself in some
sort of emergency, someplace you didn’t
want to be, and he was good at getting
you back to the ground, back to your feet.
I chose him for what he could not give me,
and he chose me because I would not ask
until I was desperate and only he could help.
Joyce Sutphen, “How We Ended Up Together” from Naming the Stars. Copyright © 2004 by Joyce Sutphen