By Jack Joseph Smith
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AI Interpretation
Rhyme treats verse as an insomnia of conscience, where falling out, sleep, daylight, a two-hour-ago dream, fear, survival, and care are held inside the pressure to rhyme.
It is one of the clearest ars poetica moments in the collection. Rhyme is not ornament here; it is pressure.
'Rhyme' is one of the collection's plainest ars poetica moments, where verse becomes an insomnia of conscience. A single rhyme arrives 'before falling out'; 'One rhyme; can't go to sleep,' and the poet keeps it though 'I just don't care' and knows 'It will not leave.' He rises 'at daylight / Writing down a two hour / ago dream, resembling a mistake,' admits 'Now I am scared,' and ends on craft as caution - 'It is hard to rhyme / Make you careful...'