Page 205

By Jack Joseph Smith

The Child How you sound, when you talk How you sin, when you walk With a gun in your hand With a horse and a rope With the sea, and without a boat With two poles, made all of stars GENUFLECTING and genuflecting about Little your hands know about Caught between the earth, and the sky Looking the kid in the eye No lie, no lie, not one

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The child is imagined through sound, sin, weapons, sea, and reverence, caught between earth and sky under the pressure of absolute truthfulness.

This page keeps innocence and danger in the same frame. Gun, horse, rope, sea, poles, and genuflection all gather around the child, so that reverence itself feels bodily and unstable. The ending refuses comfort: looking the kid in the eye means telling no lie, not even one.

Claude

A taut little 'Child' lyric built on rhyming couplets about sound, sin, gun and rope, the sea without a boat, and 'two poles, made all of stars.' The capitalized GENUFLECTING spikes the middle, and the closing 'no lie, no lie, not one' lands as an oath to the kid.