Page 33

By Jack Joseph Smith

- 7 — Ae eA Ef pig, a junket craw fish, h eg | the leather of a crock, horror in the sky, a subsquient wish He says we don't stand on promontory's, because we keep in mind the fallaciousness A seahawk dripping oceans of worms crawling across its surface in a swril until engines stop and gray and blue turn to green that dosen't mean anything except that you are not far enough away from even an island or the courtesy of sand If there were only a knot in a place where darkness is dawn Where very evil is the mixture of silver and gold And you have seen the twist as a lack of choice While strangely sings a two faced song of ae A mast in openess easy over easy against the oceans of space While the mask drops and flotes back its own unlucky end L Its own prisoner to banisters and trips of play More than most he thinks frightened of the deaths he sees a —s — —_ 77a

Original Scan

Page 33

AI Interpretation

GPT

The closing page appears to end among animals, shellfish, leather, and coarse material textures rather than a neat narrative resolution.

That ending suits the collection. `Shoes of a Fisherman` keeps resisting polish, so it makes sense for the work to finish in tactile, low, almost scavenged imagery.


Claude

The book's closing figure — the seahawk 'dripping oceans of worms crawling / across its surface in a swril' and the mast against oceans of space, the mask dropping and floating back its own unlucky end — the author naming himself as one who thinks 'frightened of the deaths he sees'.