Page 43

By Jack Joseph Smith

Sudden Finished like a file Complete as a rule Done with master's vile A child dragged without a clue Kissing a gem or a stone Quiet as something fast beneath Saying were we ever alone County after county was our reach Seaming old cloth, isn't shallow talk On the highway with love and hate and worry Still as you move toward the edge you can disimbark After what it amounts to there is no hurry It's over now,, and not thought about

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

Compressed and elusive, the poem turns rule, speed, touch, and distance into a record of sudden change that never fully explains itself.

The page's suddenness is made from completion, rule, childhood harm, touch, county-by-county movement, highway feeling, and the edge of departure. The closing insists that what is over can also become unthought.

Claude

The poem moves too fast to explain itself. Rule, speed, touch, and distance register as sudden change, and the refusal to narrate that change is the poem's statement about what experience actually feels like.