Bob Evans Mood

Those dusty trees in West Virginia,
I don’t have to know about them.
Those dusty trees—alongside Exit 2A
in Wheeling—they are a good example
of what I don’t have to know.
They can just be there in the alongsideness
while I can go have breakfast at Bob Evans.
Those dusty trees—are they in fact dusty?
It’s a coating from the traffic.
That’s all I can say and I don’t need to say more.
There is a limit. My friend Christine used to say
in 1976 when we were both trying to write great fiction
“There has to be a limit.” And I knew what she meant
though now in Bob Evans what seems more apparent
is how the limit is everywhere.
What Bob Evans means is “You don’t have to know”

and another example of what I don’t have to know
would be all the plump people having breakfast
alongside me in Bob Evans. They are all just
part of the alongsideness
so I am not responsible for their tattoos,
their failing prayers, their concern about diabetes,
their concern about losing three thousand dollars
on the Morgantown deal and what that would mean
for Cindy’s education.
I am having my eggs over light.
I can just be here.