o show love at first sight, the temptation is to swoon superlatives onto the page by focusing entirely on the other person — and describing them in detail.

But that’s not what Gregory David Roberts does here. Rather than cataloging each of her physical features, his description is selective. He focuses on two details (eyes and a single color) to express his emotional state in the presence of her beauty.

Words like swimming, floating, shimmering, and lagoon mimic the dream-like atmosphere of the moment. Focusing only on the color green lets the reader fill in the gaps through symbolism. This is the green of the divine feminine — a symbol of life, growth, vitality, and mystery of the dream-like allure this woman inspires in him.

Meeting her eyes sends him into a trance. People talk about falling in love, he describes it like floating. Long, winding, metaphor-rich, and comma-filled sentences communicate his awe.

Roberts doesn’t explicitly say “this woman is incredibly beautiful,” but by choosing his focal points carefully and focusing on himself as much as her, he ends up saying so much more.