By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
After rhyme and the ark of seeing time are finished, figures stand ridged on the moonward far side, black specks that resolve into upside-down faces.
The poem starts as if verse and vision have already completed their task, then discovers a harsher afterimage on the far side. Shadows join other shadows until bodies look like black specks fixed almost into concrete, stripped of movement and warmth. Only a proper view restores them as faces, though even then they appear upside down, as if orientation itself has failed.
Finished rhyme with the ark of seeing time: to the moon we are on the other side joining shadows, no longer moving but more rigid. Black specks almost natural, 'as if to concrete' — any proper view shows us as faces upside down.