Page 60

By Jack Joseph Smith

Sequence II The curl in the corner is gone without a clue She saw it all as love talked a dingy turn Bird like she sucked and beaked and saw Juggle is a turning trick; I know it well You let go before you catch, and then you think not to touch, and then you pretend that all is not there at all, and there is the wish when the matter of life is let to go Cared not for as a garmet, or as skin, watch a kiss blown across a stream Two alone, North and South; East and West By and by catching a glimpse Dreaming oppisite directions Until another passing of the same When birth grows to this place again oh how lovely We will avoid the hurt; SHE created the pain...

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

Love and trickery are inseparable here, with opposite directions, recurring birth, and a handwritten correction turning avoided hurt into pain that SHE created.

The page continues the sequence as a poem of letting go, pretending, and missed contact. The handwritten marginal 'oh how lovely' and the final correction sharpen the page's emotional doubleness: beauty is present, but it arrives beside hurt and authored pain.

Claude

Love is described as sleight of hand: 'Juggle is a turning trick; I know it well', where 'You let go before you catch' and then 'pretend / that all is not there at all'. The lover is bird-like ('she sucked and beaked and saw') and finally disposable, 'Cared not for as a garmet, or as skin'. The cycle of separation and return -- 'Two alone, North and South', 'Dreaming oppisite directions', 'When birth grows to this place again' -- breaks on the handwritten correction that converts shared hurt into authored harm: 'SHE created / the pain'.