Page 77

By Jack Joseph Smith

When I walk across the room I feel him behind me When I curle IN THE PERFECT COUNTRY SONG of A big bRASS bed don't I know he is gone The tightness in my hips, But when all the sweetness has left, I do I always thought I had a belly Now my nipples are so hard That my middle has disappeared Forever I accidently got cought in the drapes and I could not find my way out of the lovelyness Just a cut out of Cane I remember him; there is no brother, there is just sin My feet don't spring My but dosen't get a kick Out of a skirt in the wind

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

This closing page stays with bodily memory after a man is gone, turning bed, drapes, skin, sin, and a marginal `Forever` into an afterimage of intimacy.

It reads like the aftermath of the page before it. The speaker keeps testing whether desire has ended, but the body still answers with hips, nipples, lovelyness, and the sense of him behind her. This reading is provisional because the handwritten `Forever` is legible but its exact attachment still needs closer placement.

Claude

The closing page — `When I walk across the room / I feel him behind me` — a mirror of page 076. Nipples so hard her middle has disappeared; caught in the drapes and unable to find her way out of the loveliness; `there is no / brother, there is just sin`. The collection ends on a body that is already absence.