Now You Know By Jeff Weddle

 

There are important things no one knows, 

like when I flooded the kitchen with suds 

because no one ever told me 

not to put Palmolive in a dishwasher. 

(There was a girl coming over, of course, 

and Eric and I went sliding about the place,   

trying to clean up the mess. 

No one knows about that.)

Or walking home past midnight, 

drunk and hungry, finding a twenty 

on the sidewalk in front of a church. 

Kissing Paula Hinchman for the first time 

in that abandoned house back in 1975.

The exact feeling of falling ten feet onto cement, 

chin first, and cheating death. 

Sitting on the Minor-Dixon stairs 

with Becky Albert in 1984, 

noticing a small hole in her green sweater 

before pulling her close. 

My friend coming out to me all nervous

and me telling him honestly that everyone knew, 

but no one cared.

How I felt getting a letter 

from Charles Bukowski.

The thrill when Leesa Kruse kissed me 

between classes in high school 

for no particular reason. 

Taking nighttime walks with my father, 

each of us comfortable in our silence 

or precisely how it felt, 

my hand resting on his chest 

as he died. 

Climbing on an old cannon with my son 

or playing school with my daughter. 

Watching television each night 

with my mom 

as she drifts away. 

No one knows about me 

standing alone in a field, 

tethered to a kite and so young,

almost lost in a coming storm.

 

 

Jeff Weddle is a poet and writer living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He won the Eudora Welty Prize for Bohemian New Orleans: The Story of the Outsider and Loujon Press and has also received honors for his fiction and poetry, including being named the first State of Alabama Beat Poet Laureate (2024-2026) by the National Beat Poetry Foundation. His work has appeared in Albanian and Spanish translation. Jeff teaches in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alabama.