Page 78

By Jack Joseph Smith

Impossibility Watch the game, don't watch the game, get into the game If one does one of the three one is in some trouble If one dosen't do any of all three; abstracts will send you hands to serve you hell I love you Like wind Yes you are All time and big down deep beneath Slender beauty now I will not rest Till your sheets are mine in vacant diseration But how precious it would be to explain The beginning of the mountains and the seas When I have only let the sleep of darkness be your touch

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The poem swings between social pressure, erotic possession, and a longing to explain origins that words cannot fully reach.

The opening turns every option into trouble, making even spectatorship feel punishing. From there the voice moves into direct desire, wanting sheets, touch, and restlessness, but that intimacy keeps opening onto mountains, seas, and darkness instead of stable union. The result is urgent and unstable, with love pressed against abstraction, sleep, and impossibility.

Claude

'Impossibility': watch-don't-watch-get-into-the-game triad, then a love address about sheets, wind, and the beginning of mountains.

The first half is a koan — any choice among watching and participating lands the speaker in trouble, and abstracts serve hell. The second half is an address that admits it can't explain what it means to. 'Slender beauty now I will not rest' is the page's most honest line; the speaker treats desire as a task rather than a condition.