Page 56

By Jack Joseph Smith

Homosexuality I say my tiny tits get in my way And it is so pretty to yourself The others penis, would be myself as well, yet two is one line of perfect eternity, until penitration, while all you ever wanted is for evermore the never use of degradingly bad language You know you can wear a dress on the street, and let your shoulders go to naturally curve your back, it is the hanging towell, with your passing, a long and narrow soft cot Mostly on our stomachs, arm over arm is right Better than all the gods by far feeling lifes sleep We were content, and I didn't even know about making a mistake, with the biggest bumble bee coming to us each morning, on a varanda in Honolulu We flowers who thought alone

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

This page turns queer intimacy, embodiment, and softness into a deliberately unashamed lyric of mutual ease.

Its language is explicit, but the dominant feeling is not provocation so much as tenderness and physical reassurance. Dress, shoulders, back, cot, stomachs, and the veranda in Honolulu all create a domestic sensuality that resists shame and refuses 'degradingly bad language.' The page is strongest where it treats bodily closeness as a form of peace rather than scandal.

Claude

A standalone poem titled Homosexuality. The speaker imagines sharing anatomy as a perfect eternity until penetration, describes shoulders letting a dress curve, and settles into a morning on a Honolulu veranda with a bumblebee. The page is flowers who thought alone, a tender same-sex pastoral lodged inside the book's ship-to-port movement.