Sonnet LXXXV

Anteros answered me:
he poured his weight upon the scales that Aphrodite holds,
and I am rising up;
the world unfolds beneath my long trajectory,
my straight approach to orbit, almost,
to create an arc, horizon-passing;
and the golds that streak the sky are weightless metals,
molds that form my path,
that buoy and elate.

But her he slammed into the iron Earth,
and heavier than osmium she falls,
still lustrous, always lustrous,
but too hard and brittle, useless,
stripped of any worth for molder, forger, god or woman;
crawls in filth
--yet is too precious to discard.