There is a grain of hate

in us.  It comes cheap, and we

suck up to it, spit shine

around, hope it will harden

and grow.  The same glaze

rises in the human eye.  To fall

for someone is merely to mate

two of these eyes, merely to see

under the lip of another shell another line

of no resistance, cornea of greed.  Pardon

this.  It is love.  Love is whatever pays

a petty price for a bitter bead.  For after all

our bargaining together, a high form of life

      takes us apart

and sells, as if it were precious, the stone of the

      heart.