Wayward

By Jack Joseph Smith

Anywhere near sorrow, did I ever dream to watch you sleep Ignoring that which time heaves, over the little things of being female Always a grace with your wonder, beyond game, always an adventure; to where you areg The way you will your seconds, always a knack of astonishment; born inconceiveably first in your face Though I catch your eye, never taking it away again, still I have this proof in my hands; that even against and after your age, you will never have anything to fear, from pain

Original Scan

Page 44

AI Interpretation

GPT

A tender but unsettled address to a woman imagined through wonder, risk, and a promise of endurance against pain.


Claude

Anywhere near sorrow, the speaker dreamed of watching someone sleep — the most tender and most voyeuristic of intimacies. The poem holds wonder and risk in the same gaze, offering endurance against pain not as a promise but as an orientation, a direction the speaker faces without knowing how far the road extends.

The word 'wayward' in the title marks both the woman and the poem itself as things that have strayed from the expected path. The tenderness is genuine precisely because it is off-course.