And so, with him, the marble body of Apollo would not be so easily outdone.
Look how Hephaestus' muscle-clad arms would not surrender,
    nor would his.
Look how Dionysus would weep at the acid in his vineyard veins,
    eyelids struck with Zeus's violet lightning,
And so the blood in which Ares bathes drips down the fault lines in his chalky palms,
    lips pinker than the silk of a woman, smoother than Eros's thighs, feet bruised like Heracles's would have been.
Our modern day Paris, gorgeosity incarnate,
    even in that livid instant of death.

Transience is key, you know.
The gentle ebb and flow of your pulse
     and the sudden thrumming of your triste coeur,
the flash of his hair in the sun.
The blush on the back of your neck
     and the woeful pang of lust,
buried back down by his muffled laughs.
Empty space,
     flinching warm fingers,
bitten holes in smooth cherry lips -
Remembering you're just lonely,
     not thinking about him for a second once you're out the door,
except when you catch his eyes in the rain.
     Fleeting moments often last the longest,
that's when you know you're sick.

Cradling snowy doves in your soft palms;
     fluttering wings and fluttering smiles.
Tip-toeing shorelines, wet grass on riverbanks;
     sun-kissed shoulders and Apollo's eyes.
Flushed skin in the shade of Pelion,
     fig juice in your cold gold hair.