Page 33

By Jack Joseph Smith

once made me happy about going anywhere, doing anything; now they make me angry about doing nothing with someone else making sure that I don't see the stars any longer just the weeping of putting my head in the ground like for Steve McQueen, but it isn't, I am so sorry, he tole me when we were younger he went out among the special cord woood and got down on his knees between and weep in the old barnieal wood slop sober enough to get there the night he heard Steve McQueen died He was no more than an infeant, but the boys drink young It was longer than seconds ereeding back on the kids, year after year And I saw you, clear with our mud I saw you, and you did not rise up Honny you came down

Original Scan

Page 33

AI Interpretation

GPT

The page turns memory, grief, and masculine hero mythology into a muddy elegy that refuses clean nostalgia.

Steve McQueen, boys drinking young, old wood, and someone who does not rise up all feed the same feeling of damaged remembrance. The poem sounds like it is trying to mourn while still suspicious of the stories it inherited about men.

Claude

A page that begins mid-sentence. Steve McQueen's death remembered by a boy who went out among the `special cord wood` and wept `sober enough to get there`. `the boys drink young`. One of the strongest portraits of childhood grief in the book.