Page 172

By Jack Joseph Smith

Charles I was standing at a dary Queem counter with a mathe professor who was fifty and from Albania And there under thirty he said the girl in the booth was looking at me instead of him A man many times around the worl, my boss, my teacher still, found that a little vain I REMEMBER TELLING Now they walk along and they do not know The gifts the old have to give away I'd take war in a second if I could run I'd listen less than I ever did To take beauty and run away

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

"Charles" turns a dary Queem moment with an older Albanian mathe professor into a meditation on vanity, aging, and the unruly urge to seize beauty and run.

The page begins almost comically, with the older teacher noticing a younger woman's attention, but I REMEMBER TELLING turns the scene into recollection and opens it toward what age can still offer. The "gifts the old have to give away" feel half wisdom and half relinquishment, while the last lines imagine beauty as something to seize through motion.

Claude

Charles recalls a Dairy Queen encounter where a much older mentor notices a young woman's attention shifting to the speaker, and pivots from that small vanity into a meditation on aging, war, and the wish to seize beauty and run rather than keep listening.