For Love Of Aphrodite

Keen-eyed Mikos saw through his mortal guise.
The God was tending a forge in Acardy.
He'd worked a sword into a spade
And a shield into an infant's bathtub
Before his eyes clouded too full of tears
For him to work further.  Sighing like a bellows,
He surrendered to his misery, sat down,
And daubed at his eyes with thick sweaty fingers.

Disconcerting are a God's tears to men.
We view them as beings beyond our pain.
Mikos turned to flee, lest like Actaeon
He'd be punished for viewing the forbidden.
If it was death to watch a Goddess bathe
A God's anguish could augur an awful fate.
Hephaestus looked up and banished his fear
By beckoning him to come sit beside him.

"Ares is with her again," he explained,
His voice quivering with the indignation
And despair of a husband betrayed.
"My thoughts wander in a labyrinth of loneliness
Wherein all the corridors of desire and need
Lead only to her.  But she laughs at my love.
She seeks pleasure instead in the brutal passion
And battle-scarred visage of the God of War."

"Why do you remain with her?" Mikos wondered,
Emboldened by the God's confession.  "If my woman
Left my bed for another's embrace, I'd never take her back."
"My pride tells me I should leave her," the God admitted,
"But to rage at her infidelities
Would cut me off from that radiant beauty
Whom being close to is like basking in Spring warmth
After a lengthy, fog-laden winter of chill.

Her skin is as soft as a good-night caress,
Her lustrous hair as sweet-scented as hyacinth.
Her moist red lips glisten like rose petals
That just beg to be plucked with one's tongue.
Her nearness thickens my brain as fine wine does,
My legs become unsteady, my voice falters,
And my feelings entwine in exaltation and fear
As a warrior's thoughts do before battle.

Now I've got to get back to my work," he sighed.
"I'm going to shape her a delicate brooch
Of sapphire set in silver filagree,
Wrought to portray spindrift and sea-spray
Leaping up from the blue as it collides with the rocks
To snatch at the gold of the sun.  Imagine
The delight in her eyes when I present it to her.
How her smile will light up the room!"