Without Blindness

By Jack Joseph Smith

I bought the sixty six cheavy for sixty five dollars I had five kids, one white beside me, who I was definately in love with going across the West End Bridge, a high Pittsburgh bridge without a lock, without a stay I loved the girl Wallace so much it hurt; she was about fifteen and I was twenty three I can't remember who was sitting shotgun over from Wallace, but that she was negro, and across the back seat alll three girls were black also The black girls were a little younger than Wallace, but then again maybe Wallace was sixteen, maybe Wallace was even seventeen The others were younger though, it more than seems They were beautiful too, each one precious, but they were black and safe from me and my new found theatrical ways, And if it wasn't for the fear of Heaven, for Patty I would have gone over Wrong and right is not about the way the wind blows

Original Scan

Page 37

AI Interpretation

GPT

A charged memory poem in which race, desire, youth, and moral fear all crowd into one Pittsburgh crossing.

Claude

A sixty-six Chevy for sixty-five dollars, five kids, race named without flinching — the poem's opening inventory is precise and unsentimental. Pittsburgh is crossed with moral fear and desire, and the speaker drives through it all without blindness, which means seeing everything including what he would rather not.

The specific numbers (66, 65, 5) ground the poem in a documentary exactness that makes the emotional content — race, desire, youth — feel equally factual. In this poem, feelings are as countable as dollars.