Page 119
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Impression rather than certainty governs a page that forces a choice between the glory of God and the wonderment of Christ while a woman escapes ordinary attention and keeps walking faster than life allows a second look.
The refusal to claim direct sight gives the page a shaken honesty, as if belief begins where evidence fails. The distinction between God and Christ matters because it denies easy fullness, insisting that devotion comes with exclusion. Her regular walk through either everything or nothing gives the piece its poise, and the crossed-out ending leaves the final warning sharper: life is faster than the extra look.
A prose-block confession that disclaims direct knowledge: 'I didn't see anything, it is all an / impression.' Its theological hinge forces an exclusion - 'The glory of God and the wonderment / of Christ; you can't have both, so / take your pick' - while a woman 'excapes and / goes on walking again, jist regular', moving 'through alot as if nothing was / there, or going through nothing.' A drop of rain sends the speaker to 'an inclave', and a girl on the corner warns 'don't look one more time, because / life is faster than that.'