By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
One Cross Or The Wall links coming to peace with oneself to choosing some visible structure of belief, whether that means Jesus, a wall, or another way of locating support in the midst of work.
The poem is not triumphalist. It sounds like someone admitting that at a certain point of life and labor, a person needs something to lean against.
'One Cross Or The Wall' frames belief as a chosen option rather than a revelation: regardless of age, once 'coming to / Some kind of peace / With yourself' and 'recognizing / Something visible about / That process,' then 'in real time / Having Jesus avoce you / Is may pick.' The deliberately tentative, work-shop diction ('However one decides / To look at it,' 'At this point of work') treats Christ as the speaker's preferred support beam, ending on the bare necessity 'There has to be something.'