A speaker touches someone named Maria and is struck by the contrast between her body and her gaze. Her skin seems pale and empty, almost lifeless, and the speaker's own fingertips are ice cold, as if both of them are drained of warmth. But her eyes burn bright, and they seem to say more than anything else about her.
What the speaker feels is a mix of closeness and hurt. They say they felt both "the passion" and "the pain," and the poem never separates the two. Everything seems to come from a single look. The short, broken lines make the moment feel hushed and breathless, like someone struggling to get the words out. The final line, "those damn eyes," is where the feeling spills over. It sounds half like frustration and half like helpless attraction, as though the speaker can't look away and can't forget. The overall mood is intense, raw and a little haunted.