Venus (first draft)

The love of any woman makes
 a man into a hero
    keeps him warm in the lonely
cold watches of the night
    makes all his burdens light.
This ordinary magic, commonplace and
   dull,
      keeps us safe, and brings light into
 dark,
  The touch of her hand on a his cheek,
           the way she looks at him when he's shaving,
how she curls into the crook of his arm
       without thinking about it,
These are the eye of the storm in a
  scary world.
       The love of any woman, given
of the soft temple of
 her bed, is enough to
     keep a man from drowning in the grey
       sadness that stops his heart, or the
 red rage that comes when all is lost.

       But when a woman's love is broken,
           when the fire in her eyes begins to
              die,
There is no disaster,
       not the sack of Carthage or the fall of Rome,
Notre Dame collapsing, the grand canyon
        filling in,
   that makes the stars flicker out
         and die,
 and cuts the rope
     like hers.