Page 214

By Jack Joseph Smith

The current is as a big dog fight, underneath that is, below you like teeth snarled, and -_ Vi op to bottom with that evil boeaen, al The We, dowy, fm rd—_. yo gue _ Now I am frightened s gU Aer the” gots avd h : Wide want to go hone? op TE 2 I’ see less of myself ( e . ut (A 75 DOTA than I thought I was Way cid (ae Por yer Yet I stretch o wider than T am And glisten through her grabbing of my blood 2 B ath } ) More than thinking in my slant qe rf Ee I don't worry about bobbing anymore While way away I see her going to do more than approaching When with a wave of no for her There I know I am free

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

Caught in a current figured as a dog fight beneath the body, the speaker moves from fear and diminishment toward a hard-won sense of freedom.

The underwater snarl of teeth turns the sea into combat rather than landscape, so terror begins below the visible surface. The feminine presence who grabs at blood is threatening but not entirely defined, which lets the poem hover between erotic struggle, mortality, and drowning. Freedom arrives not through calm escape but through a refusal, "a wave of no," that finally breaks the hold.

Claude

Continues the Stephanie/undertow poem. Current as underneath dog-fight, 'teeth snarled,' the speaker stretches wider than he is, glistens through her grabbing of his blood, and wins freedom only with a wave of no.