Page 60

By Jack Joseph Smith

Getting to twentyone After twenty two THE Long blond prostitute in chicago BLACK LACE And skinny big bones Eyes LIKE unprotected windows - swinging - open-on the south side of the Moon Canadian whiskey and she was thirty-two And green her soul was green as her eyes All over her insides -- Soft, Moist, LIKE Moss, LIKE cloven that is straight, And proud -- wants to get going - wants to walk - High Like oh my good God darling - chin never turning on the street - sucker punching who she loved in soft cheese taverns - When we were finished at fourteen flights up - she lit a cigar and put a circle on My thigh I never left and will never

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

This page sketches a vivid, rough-edged woman in Chicago through class markers, bodily imagery, alcohol, desire, and street danger.

The writing is driven by accumulation: BLACK LACE, whiskey, Moss, taverns, stairs, and the moonlit south side all pile into a portrait that is sensuous and abrasive at once. The speaker is fascinated by her physical and moral atmosphere, not just by biography. The ending gesture, the cigar circle on the thigh, turns the page into a memory branded onto the body.

Claude

Titled 'Getting to twentyone After twenty two', a dense sensory portrait of a Chicago woman built by accumulation: 'BLACK LACE And skinny big bones', 'Eyes LIKE unprotected windows - swinging - open-on the south side of the Moon', 'Canadian whiskey and she was thirty-two'. Her greenness runs from eyes to soul to body - 'green her soul was green as her eyes... Soft, Moist, LIKE Moss' - paired with menace, 'sucker punching who she loved in soft cheese taverns'. After the 'fourteen flights up' encounter she 'lit a cigar and put a circle on My thigh', a brand the speaker 'never left and will never' - the sentence broken off, continuing onto page 061. Source capitalization and spellings preserved; the carryover keeps this reading slightly open-ended.