By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Grief, giving, loss, victory, solitude, and ownership are gathered into a blunt declaration that the speaker will not apologize for what was his when he sheeted the sail.
The poem moves like a list of hard-won terms for survival, each command taking something painful and refusing to sentimentalize it. Its indifference to other people's thinking is not casual; it comes after the speaker has already passed through fight and isolation. The sail at the end matters because it turns private will into motion, claim, and direction.
The page opens as a litany of hard-won terms -- 'Take the sourse of grief / Take the best of giving / Take the loss in a fight / Take the win you have had' -- each accepting something without softening it. Its indifference is earned, not careless: 'I am not sorry / for the way / other people think', set against the loneliness of 'the middle of nowwhere', and it ends by turning private will into motion and claim, 'When I sheeted the sail / it was mine'.