Without Blindness

By Jack Joseph Smith

I bought the sixty six cheavy for sixty five dollars I had five kids, one white beside me, who I was definately in love with going across the West End Bridge, a high Pittsburgh bridge without a lock, without a stay I loved the girl Wallace so much it hurt; she was about fifteen and I was twenty three I can't remember who was sitting shotgun over from Wallace, but that she was negro, and across the back seat alll three girls were black also The black girls were a little younger than Wallace, but then again maybe Wallace was sixteen, maybe Wallace was even seventeen The others were younger though, it more than seems They were beautiful too, each one precious, but they were black and safe from me and my new found theartical ways, And if it wasn't for the fear of Heaven, for Patty I would have gone over Wrong and right is not about the way the wind blows When I walk across the wilderness now I don't have to watch the way I had to watch then The black girls in the back seat who were pretty, but not the knee touch of Patty were laughing across this bridge and went to flatter me Desire and dream are leaves who but I know the tree they fall from

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

A charged memory of desire, youth, race, and moral fear on a Pittsburgh bridge, revisited through images of wilderness, leaves, and their tree.

Claude

A confessional memory poem told in ledger-like detail: 'I bought the sixty six cheavy for sixty five dollars', five kids in the car, and 'the girl Wallace', white and seated beside the speaker, whom he was 'definately / in love with' while crossing the West End Bridge, 'a high Pittsburgh bridge without a lock, without a stay'. He is twenty-three and she 'about fifteen', and the black girls riding with them are declared 'safe from me and my new found theartical ways'. Only 'the fear of Heaven' kept him from going 'over' for Patty. After the aphorism 'Wrong and right is not about the way the wind blows', the poem moves to the present - walking 'across the wilderness now' he no longer has 'to watch the way I had to watch then' - and closes on the girls laughing across the bridge and a claim of sole knowledge: 'Desire and dream are leaves / who but I know the tree they fall from'.

The title becomes the method: to see 'without blindness' is to refuse to look away from a desire that frightened the speaker himself. Exact prices and ages give the confession a ledger's honesty, while the circling revision of Wallace's age - 'maybe Wallace was sixteen, maybe Wallace was / even seventeen' - suggests a conscience trying to revise the math after the fact. The unguarded bridge makes 'gone over' ambiguous: it can evoke literal danger as well as a moral line involving Patty, whose relation to Wallace is not established. The racial framing is part of the confession rather than an aside: the speaker calls the black girls 'safe from me', exposing both the period's divisions and his own unease with desire. The later lines measure the distance from then to now; he says he no longer has to watch himself as he did then. The closing image claims desire and dream as leaves whose tree only he knows. Source spellings 'cheavy', 'definately', 'alll', and 'theartical' are preserved.