Mrs. Wilkinson never raises her voice, and that is what makes her so unsettling. She holds up an emerald ring, says "see?" as if showing a visitor a pie dish, and mentions in passing that the Queen gave it to her grandmother. The poem never says what kind of queen she is or where "their land" lies, but the details point to something otherworldly: a gem with "power" in it, a place from which "they'll come get me." The title suggests the poem is one entry in a longer series of interview scenes, though the text itself shows only this one conversation.
The form is built to sound like talk. There is no rhyme and no regular meter, only short, plain lines that break where a speaker might take a breath. Phrases such as "to tell the truth," "Anyway," and "I guess" are the filler of real speech, and the poet leaves them in. The double space in "So I don't. I just keep it here" works like a small pause, as though Mrs. Wilkinson has decided the subject is closed and then wanders back to it. Because we never hear the interviewer, we take the interviewer's seat. "It's emerald, see?" is aimed straight at us.
The ring's story is told with great practicality. Mrs. Wilkinson was "a little scared of it," so she took the problem to the Queen herself, and the Queen's answer was to wear it "on a chain / instead of on my finger." The advice is neat, because a ring on the finger is a bond, while a ring on a chain is something kept near but held at a distance. Her own reasoning is just as sensible: "There's likely no power left in it, / but why ask for trouble?" The rhetorical question sounds like proverbial caution, the way someone might talk about not walking under ladders. Magic here is treated like a stove that might still be warm, something to respect without making a fuss. The ordinary phrasing is what lets the strange material feel believable.
The word choices also keep the wonder small. The things she has seen in that land are simply "pretty things," a modest phrase that suggests either childlike memory or a speaker who has never had fancy words for it. Nothing is described in detail. The only vivid object is the ring, and she takes it out only "now and again," which makes her look at it like someone with a photograph. Its job is memory: "It reminds me of Gram." The gift passes between generations, and the poem hints that Mrs. Wilkinson's links to that place are inherited.
The second stanza is shorter, and the mood changes. The first part is about an object, while the second is about the future. "I haven't been there for a long time" carries a note of loss, and the sentence that follows is the most startling in the poem: "I guess someday they'll come get me and I'll stay." Read one way, it is a hope of rescue. Read another, "come get me" and "stay" echo the language people use about death, and a reader could just as easily see a lonely old woman building comfort out of belief. The poem doesn't settle this, and it is stronger for leaving both readings open.
Then the plainest line of all arrives: "I've got nobody here now." Without it, the poem could be a charming bit of folklore. With it, we see why leaving appeals to her. The final line, "I like it there pretty well," is understatement at its most moving. "Pretty well" is the kind of cautious praise people give when they are afraid to hope too much, and it is the only claim she makes for the place that she can really stand behind.
What makes the poem worth studying is how it handles the supernatural. It offers no spectacle and no dramatic encounter, only a woman telling her story with the ring held out in her hand. By keeping her language so ordinary, the poem makes the strange feel believable and the sad feel natural. It shows that a poem can say something large about loneliness and belonging by sounding like a chat, and that what a speaker leaves unsaid can matter as much as what she says.