Page 266

By Jack Joseph Smith

The eye In The Animal Didn't eatch it, eross the corner, wind the briteh, across the roek there has to be a stream, and a river down through the eenter of your towm and as she came she said I did not leave you and I did not take you and I am the one who owns you,, and I have been through a cotton field and seen the stars at the same time and I have walked aeross the Gulf of Mexieo, onee that would be and sor I havent had a shotgun I my hand since I was alot younger than you are and I have not been able to twirl a basketball eoreetly since I was fifty and I did not see a window in your song and it hurt dear and went away.

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The eye In The Animal turns ownership into a roaming monologue of corner, briteh, river, cotton field, Gulf crossing, lost athletic skill, and a painful song.

The voice that says I am the one who owns you arrives through landscape rather than argument, moving from corner and roek to stream, town, and cotton field. Walking aeross the Gulf of Mexieo sits beside not carrying a shotgun and no longer twirling a basketball, so legend and aging share the same breath. The missing window in the song hurts because it suggests a song without opening, one that cannot let the speaker see through.

Claude

'The eye In The Animal' arrives as landscape before argument -- 'across the roek there has to be a / stream, and a river down through the eenter / of your towm' -- and then as a claiming voice: 'I did / not leave you and I did not take you and I / am the one who owns you'. The speaker mixes legend with aging in one breath: 'walked aeross / the Gulf of Mexieo, onee', no shotgun 'since / I was alot younger', no basketball twirl 'since I was fifty'. The wound is a closed song: 'I did not see a window / in your song and it hurt dear and went away' -- a music with no opening to see through.