Page 31
By Jack Joseph Smith
When I arrived in EL PASO and
was walking across the Bridge
to W I stopped yelling
inside, and there would of
course be no crying; there
I did not suppose, and I did
not sense, I simply knew
I was gone.
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
GPT
The speaker recalls arriving in El Paso and crossing a bridge, stops yelling inside, then recognizes a departure.
The speaker distinguishes knowing from supposing or sensing and says there will be no crying. The writer leaves a blank after W without naming the destination across the bridge.
Claude
A handwritten passage in which the speaker, arriving in EL PASO and 'walking across the Bridge / to W', stops 'yelling / inside' and finds there will 'of / course be no crying'. It ends on flat certainty: 'I did not suppose, and I did / not sense, I simply knew / I was gone.'
The page turns a border crossing into an inner departure, measured by the end of inward noise rather than by any outward event. The unfilled space after 'W' is left open by the writer. The closing triad of suppose, sense and knew moves from doubt to plain knowledge in one continuous sentence.