After stopping for food
            after driving 8 and a half hours,
            a young waitress came to my table.

            “How much did they pay for that gun
             above the mantle?” I asked her.

             “We don’t sell them,” she said.

             “But it is plain what they gave
              for it.”

              “How can you see that?” she shook 
              her head while asking me.

              “What is above it?”

               “A deer,” she answered.

                “A buck,” I said.

                “That’s a good joke,” she said.
                “What can I bring you to drink?”

                  I tell her.

                “When she returns, I ask her,
                 “What do you think my profession is?”

                  “I have no idea,” she said

                   “Do you know what Emily Dickinson
                    was by profession. I am one of those.”

                    “Not a clue,” she said.

                    “What about Robert Frost?”
    
                     “I don’t know anything about him!”

                    “What about the Beatles?”

                    “They were singers!”

                    “Do you know what a poet is?”

                    “Yes and no,” she said.

                    I asked her to write my name
                    on her note pad.

                    ” Do you have internet?”

                    “Yes.”

                      “Do a search for my name
                       and ask how many books I have written
                        and you will know if I am lying to you.”

                       “That’s cool,’ she said.
                        Come back and see me again.”