I thought I did... but now I think I don't.  What do you mean?

Ian

cheryl -- what if you use 'fallen' as title and 'stillborn' where you've used fallen in L2 [tiko's suggesiton]   

excellent notion!!!

Ok, changed now.  Has more meaning now.  I was at first concerned about the sound, but stark and stillborn sound fine.

Thanks very much.

Ian, what I meant was that I wanted to make sure I was saying the pecans were covered in olive velvet.  Hope that makes sense.

Thank you,
cheryl

to picks.

Ah, the literal meaning -- that is what I thought you meant!  I was suddenly worried I was missing something symbolic / metaphorical, I do that...  I say nice poem with trees and oceans and the poet says "it's about my first wife!"

I don't think that reversing the lines will confuse...  if you were particularly worried, you could put a colon or dash at the end of the new middle line.

Just a thought.

Ian

Tiko, thank you so much.

cheryl

Ian, thank you as well for your suggestions.

L2-3's echo of "the newborn wrapped in swaddling clothes" makes this poem so rich to me.

What a wonderful thought.  Thank you, Tom.

cheryl