Page 40

By Jack Joseph Smith

The abiss at the end of civilization She tood the baby and dropped it Over the rail of the bridge The allegany River With the piitsburgh lights It was her sister Older and unsure For she had confronted Her younger sister Who had seen Played Hamlet And shouted at the croud To be guiet during her speech A pin dropped And the visiting high ranks Must have talked so That I heard the Monseinor talked To the mayor over brandy about the Talent this fourteen year old girl Had as an actress

Original Scan

Page 40

AI Interpretation

GPT

A woman drops a baby over a bridge rail. The account then turns to her younger sister's Hamlet performance and a conversation about the fourteen-year-old actress's talent.

The speaker recalls both the catastrophe and the public praise. The two accounts share the page, but the text does not explain why the woman dropped the child or establish a cause linking the events.


Claude

Under 'The abiss at the end of civilization', the older sister 'tood the baby and dropped it / Over the rail of the bridge' into 'The allegany River'. The poem then recalls the younger sister, who 'Played Hamlet / And shouted at the croud / To be guiet during her speech', and the Monseinor talking to the mayor over brandy about the talent this fourteen-year-old girl 'Had as an actress'.

The typed lines move abruptly from the dropped baby to a school-play triumph, linking the sisters through confrontation without explaining the act. The flat, unpunctuated lines state the catastrophe as plainly as the praise, and that plainness is the page's most disturbing effect.