You didn’t sweep in on a snowy steed
Clad in armour buffed until it glittered –   
A shining knight of bright and mighty deed
Clutching ribboned gifts on which you’d frittered
A wad of dosh from coffers spilling splendour
To get your dazzled damsel to surrender.

You didn’t swing in on a torrid breeze  
With leopard-loincloth swagger and a smirk –  
A tawny Tarzan with a plan to seize  
His Jane from every predatory jerk  
Who prowled the concrete jungle for a chance
To whisk an ape-man’s darling off to dance.

You didn’t flounce in with a Darcy flourish 
Dripping in a nipple-clinging shirt,
Flushed from swimming with a need to nourish – 
An Austenesque Adonis hot to flirt
With she who fires the loins and kindles ire – 
That heady hex of angst and wild desire.

You didn’t breeze in with a crystal slipper –
A dishy prince of wit and pleasing means –
Keen to ogle toes and feeling chipper
Post dodging shrews in podgy-footed scenes
All fretting that their sweaty nether digits
Would fail to fit a sneaker made for midgets.

You didn’t burst in from the gale-whipped heights –
A fevered, black-eyed Heathcliff with a fetish
For ghouls who wuther through the squally nights –
Brash banshees with a smidgen of coquettish
To quell the hellish brooding of a beau
From moors where perished whores and ill winds blow.   

You didn’t float in cloaked in fanged mystique
With eyes aglitter in the gibbous moon –
A bold and batty beast of buff physique
With lust enough to make the bloodless swoon –
A peckish, gothic sucker at the beck
And call of maidens with a juicy neck.

You slid beneath my skin and lit my eyes
With beams of bliss that buoyed the bleakest day.
You hugged my heart. You rocked my lows to highs.   
You kissed my soul and stole my breath away.
No dreamy prose or rosy ream of rhyme
Can capture love that transcends tears and time. 

*****

First published in Snakeskin

Photo: “Vintage valentine” by seaside rose garden is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.