The speaker describes falling for a stranger at first sight, and the whole poem is built on one contrast: winter versus spring. At the start, flowers bloom against a gray sky, which already hints that something impossible has happened. The speaker looks into a pair of green eyes and feels the world "turned inside out." Then the stranger walks past without hesitating, and the world freezes again. The imagery turns cold and lifeless: icy dirt, dust, a dull sky.
The mood shifts when the stranger returns, blushing, holding out a scrap of paper with a phone number scrawled on it. Their fingers touch, the stranger smiles, and the gray clouds seem to clear. The flowers and trees come back to life. The speaker's feelings swing from awe to disappointment to relief and joy, ending on a breathless question: how did I live without you? The tone is giddy, hopeful, and openly romantic.