Page 174

By Jack Joseph Smith

Just As Good It is hard to say you are good It is hard to say you are a bad boy It is hard to rhyme with what you could have done However it is loyal, when you get to touch the end One hundred years at a time T gave up and walked across the room I said, “let me at least, sit in a corner" And when it got over,. T didn’t thank you for anything

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

"Just As Good" refuses easy verdicts about goodness or badness and ends in a cornered, ungrateful endurance after everything has run its course.

The poem treats moral naming as harder than rhyme, which gives the opening lines a dry, skeptical edge. "Touch the end / One hundred years at a time" makes loyalty sound exhausting rather than noble. By the close, the speaker has settled for mere survival and withholds thanks as a final act of independence.

Claude

Just As Good: hard to say you are good, to rhyme with what you could have done. Sit in a corner, and when it got over I didn't thank you for anything.