A Molly Love, My Only Sister

By Jack Joseph Smith

Kissed clear Sailor when wandering shell back has gone From your feet you desired me not Until memory suggested the world as swelled, with where we stood when a whole kitchen wondered why Sweet and down along the way was your glance; and then as a dry lawn through gardens, your seriousness went dreary, all for a hallway of thought Loving you in the way of in love was not a plan, so it was just to high for following Yet scared, and no good at it, trying made me happy Yes a wounded fox from the hunt; a wild wolf finally under siege Only falling would let me climb to your embrace Different than sister; no chalking this one off, upright we will be there, at a point where we did not take off, but stayed, kept with our hands A newness beyond all the fashions of laughter we know We will never languish our places, our steps, our songs, or our dreams of direction And so tiny you have it all my lady For though I have wished for sin, and sorrow too Still I have seen your eyes of joy...

AI Interpretation

GPT

A love poem that keeps folding kinship, desire, and hesitation into one tense emotional register, refusing to make intimacy simple.

Claude

The poem folds kinship and desire into a single address — Molly is sister, beloved, and sailor's farewell all at once. The opening image of a 'shell back' gone wandering sets the emotional tone: love here is maritime, subject to departure, and never fully on solid ground.

The title's possessive ('my only sister') introduces a claim of uniqueness that the poem then complicates. Intimacy is not simple because the speaker keeps discovering new layers of relation inside the same bond.