By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
"Coward" answers the question of what there is to know by reducing life on probation in a tough neighborhood to the one hard fact the speaker actually has.
The poem rejects abstraction almost immediately, demanding that anyone with a better explanation produce it. That challenge matters because it turns cowardice away from moral insult and toward a condition lived under pressure. The closing line is bare and defensive, as if possession of this single reality is all the authority the speaker can claim.
Coward: short probation stanza, hanging out in a tough neighborhood, daring whoever to bring something different.