Page 158

By Jack Joseph Smith

The Window i : Through whick one looks . I see nothing The one next to me | | Nothing either is i what was seen i Mostly downtown _ But other places | Outside valleys | i and such | F : : You see a twist in the mind | If they were the same age, | | in the same place | thirty five years ago, ! no matter what, their | bellies and their eves | | would be better | . | | | |

Original Scan

Page 158

AI Interpretation

GPT

"The Window" reduces the view to almost nothing, then turns that emptiness into a reflection on age, bodies, and the damage time does to sight and self.

The repeated "nothing" is not peaceful blankness but a thinning of what can still be seen and held. Downtown, valleys, and other places remain out there, yet the real twist is inward, in the mind that frames them. The last lines are brutal because they measure decline in the most ordinary terms: bellies, eyes, and the body’s lost ease.


Claude

The Window reprise of 61: the twist that thirty-five years ago the same age in the same place would mean better bellies and eyes.