Page 77
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
A woman is described through unstable motion, damage, performance, and correction: hovering, spiraling, descending, using a lesser object, and still becoming the star of anyone's chosen scene.
The page turns bodily imbalance into a method of survival. Its odd spellings and typed corrections keep the poem physically exposed, especially around the stair, the lesser object, and the corrected movement from down to around. The final catwalk image makes the speaker's recognition of her feel earned through shared risk rather than pity.
A woman is rendered through unstable motion and damage: 'She is not blaming', she 'can spin of a mountain, make / it like an accident', and 'now that she can't talk anymore, so / she hovers as a gypsy', cutting 'her nails / on being used'. She lies on the stairs and 'will use the lesser object to come down', and the speaker grants her any role -- 'she can be the star / of anyone you want' -- yet sees her plainly as 'a pale face / with a freckle on her forehead', 'under / the pier', her 'feet need sme work', recognition earned because 'I have walked a cat walk, and I know / she has too'.