That’s the Way It Was by Jeff Weddle

Drunk in San Francisco, drunk in Key West,
drunk in Daytona, in St. Augustine,
New Orleans, Denver, New York,
Columbus, Concord, Memphis, St. Louis,
Kansas City, Nashville, Louisville, Lexington.
All over Maine. Here and there in Canada.
Good bars, bad bars, bars where despair
is standard, bars that could get you killed
and sad strip clubs.
Coming to in a hedge. The worst knife
to the heart. Curtis talking to me
like I was sober and awake
so the cops wouldn’t arrest me
in that greasy spoon in West Virginia.
Drunk on sidewalks I don’t remember.
Drunk in Morehead, in Knoxville, in Oxford,
in Indianola. Sad most of the time.
Often lost and even delighted. Shy and troubled.
In love again and again and again.
Women in memory, in my arms, in my bed,
in dreams. Me a selfish lout. All of them crazy
and beautiful.
Nonstop drives across three or four states
with Curtis and George, or either one of them,
or me alone. Beer drunk on backroads
in half the lower 48. Driving into a swamp
not sure how I got there or how I got out.
The world’s tallest Prairie Dog in Kansas
and falling down laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe.
Air so thin in Aspen
it was like suffocating.
Curtis and Donna perfect in love
and cancer taking everything. Famous writers
here and there. George and Cathy. Betrayal
once and once again. Up in Michigan being
awful. That Greyhound ride across the country.
Wishing for stories and poems and books,
staring like an idiot at the stars
and howling like mad.
Telling George his father died.
Telling George to go fuck himself.
Going broke in Alabama.
Going broke in Mississippi.
Going crazy in Kentucky.
I was so young. I was so young until I wasn’t.
It took me a while to notice
but I finally got the hint.
I’ll have another cup of coffee now.
I’m tired and my knees hurt.
Time to feed the dog, watch the news
and wait for the mail.
Should get a proof of the new book
this afternoon.
Maybe someone is reading me in Kosovo
or Columbia.
Just this second I’m fine.
I’m better than some,
as good as I am able to be.

Jeff Weddle is a poet and writer living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. His most recent books are Driving the Lost Highway (Uncollected Press, forthcoming) and a volume of selected poems in Albanian translation, VRITMË NËSE KE KOQE (Kosovo: Sabaiumbb 2023). His work has also appeared in Spanish translation. Jeff teaches in the School of Library and Information Studies at The University of Alabama.