Plahm personifies desire as a tiny imp that hijacks the body one extremity at a time. The poem begins at the periphery—a twitching little finger—and works inward through toe, eyelid, and eye until it reaches the mind, where the devil is “Running / Wild.” This anatomical progression is both comic and true to the experience of attraction: it starts as a physical twitch before the brain catches up. Each body part acts with its own comic autonomy—the finger “Slipping away, / Fleeing the scene unnoticed,” the eyelid “Winking, / Trying to charm you,” the toe “Scratching at / Its clueless neighbor.” The devil conceit allows Plahm to write about desire without solemnity, treating romantic compulsion as a kind of delightful possession. The pivot to “My little devil… / Knows your worth” elevates the mischief into something genuine—this isn’t mere flirtation but recognition. The closing question—”Did you just stick out / Your ankle?”—is a perfect dismount, suggesting the beloved has her own little devil, and the two imps might just be conspiring together. Light, charming, and surprisingly physical in its attention to the body’s small betrayals.

A delightful poem that proves attraction poetry doesn’t need to be heavy to be effective. The “little devil” conceit gives Plahm a vehicle for cataloging the body’s involuntary responses to desire—twitching fingers, curling toes, winking eyelids—with a specificity that feels observed rather than invented. The anatomical journey from periphery to center mirrors the way attraction gradually overtakes consciousness, and each body part’s comic independence (“Fleeing the scene unnoticed”) keeps the tone buoyant. The structural discipline is admirable: every stanza introduces a new body part and a new antic, building momentum toward the mind’s total surrender. The line “Stars dancing in my vision, / Framing your halo” is a lovely collision of the devilish and the angelic, capturing the paradox of desire that feels both sinful and sacred. The closing ankle image is a masterful final note—unexpected, flirtatious, and perfectly calibrated to leave the reader smiling. Where the poem could deepen is in the middle stanzas, which occasionally repeat the pattern without escalating the emotional stakes. But the charm is undeniable, and the conceit holds beautifully from first twitch to last ankle.