Page 121
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Street signs, acceptable faces, false talk of friendship and love, and a fruitless search for her lead instead to a harsher knowledge of how damage is done by people who never look back.
The page distrusts surfaces from the start, especially faces that pass social standards without ever seeming natural. The smooth river and the skirt blowing without wind suggest a world where appearances keep happening without the causes one expects. What the speaker learns by continuing the walk is not where she is, but how other people move through the world without remorse.
This untitled page distrusts surfaces: you scan 'faces / that are acceptable, but all the while / don't appeare natural to you.' It catches the addressee in contradiction - 'You say this world is not for friendship / And you are here telling me about love' - while the speaker, 'the / best around the corner girl', notes uncanny appearances, a skirt that 'blew' with no wind and a river 'suddenly smooth', 'nature changing shifts like men used to do.' Searching for her yields nothing about her but much 'about others', closing on the cold law that 'the / ones who do the damage don't look over / their sholder.'