Aphrodite Charlatan

Love furnace hot make me to lava melt
Temper me hard in slow fierce glacial cold
Stroke me to ecstasy with feathers; hold
me fast in chains and whip me. Every welt

is passion's fee. We pay for love in coins
not made of metal; heartbreak is our fee
and what we buy with it. Our tragedy
is that our aching hearts and burning loins

will never last. Love fades or maybe dies
as lovers do. And yet while passions last
each one seems different from its sisters past.
We cry 'this is eternal' as it flies.

We worship you as trickster. Let me say
Love's goddess can't be any other way.