Intensity

She’s drawn across the room to where he stands,
As if she were a puppet he controls;
She braces both her shoulders; his commands
Are such that she’s affected; and the tolls
That she must take, resound within her mind;
They echo with a certain emphasis
And, as she takes, she gives all she can find
To be the gift that he cannot dismiss:
A ‘little’ girl in lithograph who’s bowled
Right over by the thought of consequence,
She knows that she must do as she is told,
For doing as she’s told is as intense
As she so wants to be as, in the gloom
At dusk, she’s always drawn across the room