Page 174
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
This tiny observational fragment notices women's seriousness through a social comparison, suggesting how posture and intellect are read onto the body.
Even as a slight note, it shows the manuscript's habit of turning a glance into a judgment about class, mind, and manner.
A four-line observational fragment with no title: 'The women appeared serious / like intellectual men who / cross their legs above / the knee'. The whole poem is one simile read off the body - seriousness rendered as posture - and its comparison ('like intellectual men') quietly lays gender, class, and manner over a single glimpsed gesture. It offers no conclusion, just the noticing, typical of the manuscript's habit of turning a look into a small social judgment.