By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Public life feels dangerous because bodies are judged before they are known.
The fragment reduces the city to a thin main sidewalk and a falling mirror made from millions of feet, so ordinary walking becomes exposure. American man and American woman sound less like identities than verdicts already waiting to be imposed. The final appeal to the Big Supreme fears that history itself may already have opened onto the abyss.
Closing beat of the Pittsburgh sequence: 'Dangerous in mind? / It was much more dangerous on foot', where appearing 'to be judged American man' or 'woman' on the 'monolith' sidewalk that 'squared its millions of feet / into a falling mirror', the speaker hopes 'THEE BIG SUPREME' has 'not already called the abyss'.
The fragment turns walking into exposure: to be on foot is to be 'judged' as 'American man' or 'American woman', identities that arrive as verdicts before the person is known. The figure that gives the city its dread self-awareness is the sidewalk that 'squared its millions of feet / into a falling mirror' - the pavement reflects and assesses, a surface tipping toward collapse. 'Dangerous in mind? / It was much more dangerous on foot' privileges bodily exposure over inner risk. The capitalized 'THEE BIG SUPREME / JUST for HISTORY' is the poem's nervous humor, dressing the serious fear - that history may already have 'called the abyss' - in mock-grandeur so the question can be asked at all.