By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Ten thousand steps beyond the city, branched roads, bridge edges, and three rivers frame a restless will that links private inclination to the same old instinct for violence.
The speaker begins with confidence in private inclination, then walks far enough outside the city for the landscape to start arguing back. Branched roads, bridge edges, and the three rivers make the poem feel Pittsburgh-local and physically split, a place where every choice already leans toward collision. The warning not to get tired of the truth sharpens the closing frustration with people who need to conclude what they already know is false.
Titled 'First Younf', the poem moves from impulse to action -- 'I got the inclination, to figure it out / Then I go ahead, and do what I want' -- then walks 'Ten thousand steps outside my city' until the land starts answering back. The warning 'Don't get tired of the truth' sits beside the bleak constant that 'the instinct for violence, is the same', and 'the edge of the bridges, and the three rivers' grounds it in a forking, Pittsburgh-shaped place. The closing impatience is with people 'who need to conclud' that a known thing is false.