Effie and Jim

[billy]

i like that what you see is what you get. for me it's a given what the poem is about and i love it's plain language, that said [from the stranger ] feel too obvious and i wonder if it's needed? the line before intimates her disease as does the penultimate line. love the rose buds and how their used to mean something.

Nurses dress Effie in her best
for the official picture, even
a rosebud on a head-band.
(her hair is fine and thin)


Jim wears a suit, matching rosebud
in his lapel. He tries to feed her
some special cake the staff made
but Effie is frightened of him.


She cowers away from the stranger,
clutches her giant pink dinosaur
in their sixty-fifth wedding 
anniversary photo.

No sapphire; she lost her diamond
engagement ring long ago.
Jim’s been alone for years.
He’s not ashamed of his tears.