I call for love
But help me, who arrives?
This thug with broken nose
And squinty eyes.
'Eros, my bully boy,
Can this be you,
With boxer lips
And patchy wings askew?'
'Madam,' cries Eros,
'Know the brute you see
is what long overuse
Has made of me.
My face that so offends you
Is the sum
Of blows your lust delivered
One by one.
We slaves who are immortal
Gloss your fate
And are the archtypes
That you create.
Better my battered visage,
Bruised but hot,
Than love dissolved in loss
Or left to rot