Fairy Wings
By: Wood
April 28, 2018, revised April 30, 2018; revised May 26, 2018
Inside your eyes I see the little girl within, your face framed by those silky locks.
The little girl that freshens your face inside out.
A mythical pixie she must be, dressed with butterfly wings of rainbow hue.
Waving fairy wands at puppies and old men alike, casting her spell over them all.
The freckles so sweet an impression makes.
Your beauty radiating from inside out, fueled by the glow of your pint-size lantern.
Delicate lips and sharp-set chin cast by your character and the roundness of a feminine cheek tempt any man lucky enough to capture that little girl's minute attention span.
Any bubble or flower would drag her away from me, and with her she would take the sun, who favors her more, leaving only clouds and despair behind.
To have the chance to gently kiss your face in the dark to make a mental map of you to later push back the loneliness that your absence would leave me in.
Greater men than I would make a second date before losing hope that they could keep you.
I could not dare a first.
With my words, I bait a fairer pheasant than my own plumes would ever find.
And I linger in my guilt that I ensnare you with only what little the Creator saw to provide me.
Hopeful that in those eyes the princess I see can transform this caterpillar at least in her eyes.
Yes, I seek to dupe you.
I am duping you and will dupe you still more for one chance to run my hands through the hair of a maiden fair.
Touch my lips to such a neck, the soft rigidity of your clavicle tickle, hoping to arouse the vixen within to assist me in the trapping of such a fine fowl.
For only fantasy would allow men to capture something fantastical, pitting magic against magic, without crushing the little spirit.
Even birds in gilt cages languish for need of visiting spring's flowers.
In the solitude of the cage of my own self imprisonment, I know you to be the more genuine, truly beautiful person.
And scares me that I could be so close to holding you.
And yet once held, you would be no more captured than first morning's light through outstretched fingers.
For to capture you would be to crush you.
And to leave you free would drive a man insane with jealousy that some other trapper would capture your heart while he mended the net of his own affairs.
Wild male birds for hours make a small abode to flash and dance and tempt a female in.
These one trick wonders only two minutes get with their fairer lovers till the next year comes.
But no wild bird are you, though your spirit still untamed is.
Far more would you need and want. Far more would you deserve.
Birds often sought the shelter of heavily tapestried medieval great halls.
But once in, they flit madly amongst the rafters and the smoke from the blackened fireplace.
Regret turned to panic, being unsure how to escape the prison they sought in weakness' moment.
No.. My darkened heart is no place for a pixie.
Long lashes surround your eyes like the wings of a hovering hummingbird.
Your deep brown eyes hide the dense forest of your mind that only a lifetime could a woodsman come to know all of its intricate ways, studying you deeper than any ornothologist his favorite species knows.
What man should be lucky enough to be tasked this study gets the rest of your fair femininity.
With such features, never a man satisfied could he be.
Returning ever again to refresh himself in the waters of the well that refills your fountain.
I know now I can never hold you. Can only dream of doing so.
Such beauty action alone takes.
Fair words will only so long make fairies linger.
Yet I cannot stop though only failure awaits me.
Fools make folly like birds make nests, each after their own fashion.
And all nature grows as the spring sun shines on it, even if it knows that winter's dusk approaches.
I steal from the warmth of your smile as long as fair weather permits it.
