Teresa Jane McGovern (1949-1994)

1.

When you went out for a walk

even when grown up,

you would make extra-sure

that you didn't step on ants.

As a child you listed your Three Favorite People:

God, Jesus, and Adlai Stevenson.

As a grade-schooler you got on famously

with your neighbor in Washington:

the senator from Minnesota

whom you called "Humfey."

You were vigorous, relentless even,

about cleaning your room.

When you were fifteen,

your boyfriend wounded himself with a gun,

out of despair that you wouldn't have sex with him.

Shortly afterwards, you gave in

and became pregnant.

Your father had to work a few connections

to handle things quietly, safely.

2.

You were smiling in that photo

at your forty-fifth birthday

as you sat next to your dad.

3.

One night, a few weeks before Christmas,

you wandered, drunk,
into the home of a young single mom,

female roommate, two small children.

You stared a vacant but kindly stare
at the kids on the sofa. The adults
saw that you were no threat, were confused
or impaired, and treated you with kindness.

They asked you gentle questions. Your address.

If you were on medication.

You stood there, silent, beyond help.

When the mom summoned police,

you fled back into the streets of Madison,
into merciless mid-December,

into the night of Jamaica Jo's,

of Jolly Bob's and the Crystal Corner,

you walked past dives that had cut you off,

onto an unlit patch of a quiet parking lot
where you collapsed for the last time

in a slight glaze of snow.

Nothing but death

could keep you from telling yourself

the lie that you were not worthy of love.