By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
After considerable wrong, the speaker imagines deliberate wrongdoing, a woman without fences, and the hard limit of being believed just enough.
The opening distinction between accidental wrongdoing and intentional harm gives the whole poem its uneasy conscience. The woman leads him into an open space "without fences," a place that sounds free but offers no protection from consequence. Her believing that he has told the truth becomes the only available grace, and the ending accepts that coming back or not coming back changes nothing essential.
Considerable wrong done by accident versus on purpose: she leads you on, you give her all you got, she tells you she thinks you have told her the truth — 'that's enough / If you do, or don't come back / That's the best / You're gonna get.'