By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
"Chance" counts two and two across the stars, moves through failed crossings, and arrives at a triple loss to Christ, Pascal, and the speaker's own hard-won knowledge.
The poem is built from attempted nearness that never quite becomes arrival. Ship, tie, in-between return, and failed holding all suggest a life unable to secure the thing it moves toward. Naming Christ and Pascal together turns the loss philosophical and spiritual at once, while the source's odd syns and seem keep the counting unstable.
'Chance' counts and falls short: 'Two and two across the stars, / Four syns I've seem them', then a string of near-misses - 'I did not see you', 'I tried to go / Close for a ship', 'I came back inbetween / Still not tough enough / To make a hold.' The accounting collapses into a triple ledger of failure: 'A loss to Christ / A loss to Pascal / A loss to all that / I know now', pairing the wager of faith with Pascal's name to make the chance both spiritual and philosophical.