Page 156
By Jack Joseph Smith
Forget
It was a shrug
A meanless gesture
A way out of things
Or a way in
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
This page reduces forgetting to a shrug, treating it as a 'meanless' gesture and a possible route either out of things or into them.
Its force comes from how spare it is. The poem refuses to dramatize forgetting; instead it treats it as posture and motion, while the source spelling 'meanless' gives the abstraction a rough, typed immediacy.
Titled 'Forget', the page reduces forgetting to bodily posture: 'It was a shrug / A meanless gesture', then leaves it ambiguous as 'A way out of things / Or a way in', refusing to dramatize the act.