Page 229

By Jack Joseph Smith

My Son Lets get down to the matter Swimming before he walked Dormont, Pittsburgh pool fhe bieycle was twenty five miles an hour, as far as I am eoneerned, not neeessarily with mp permission Where at that time he eould at least go on four legs to the bike oh bikes, I ~ eount six of the monsters, all beat to death way before he was six Now he rides five hundred miles at a time Aeross the open roads

Original Scan

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AI Interpretation

GPT

"My Son" returns to swimming before walking, ruined childhood bicycles, and five-hundred-mile rides to show motion as his native condition from Pittsburgh onward.

Dormont and the Pittsburgh pool give the poem a local beginning before it accelerates into bicycles, speed, and parental unease. Counting six ruined bikes before age six makes destructiveness part of apprenticeship, not evidence against it. The five-hundred-mile rides at the end simply reveal what was already there in the child who swam before he walked.


Claude

'Lets get down to the matter': swimming before walking, Dormont Pittsburgh pool, 25 mph on a bicycle without permission. Six bike 'monsters' beat to death before he was six; now 500 miles at a time.