Admirer - inspired by ESVM

i lay small and simple at your feet
your plum toes, sweetly round.
i lay like Alice in her dream state
asleep within a dream, you are found-

i will lay easily as if on air
your chest rising like clouds from blue
springing free from crafted ribs-
nothing can be caged in you.

with your Persian smile, Grecian nose
old English tricks of speech,
you slay without movement, quietly
all those awake and within reach.

restraint uncommon and admired
in your dress, your walk, your profile-
you are a poem from another time,
the rose-red ends of a Mona Lisa smile.

i lay where your eyes carry a river
into the depths of a great sea-
where one by one we slip,
and drown so gratefully.

-maggie may ethridge