On Being Told "You Write Like a Diamond Cutter"

1.    In my family, lines of fault
       and shining shoot out across the round
       table, where the new wife is seated
       nearest the door.

2.    This means to write
       with colour. Clarity.
       Cut.

3.    Hard as it is, how can diamond
       be polished? With tools
       of diamond. Which sharpens,
       the words or the mind?

4.    Diamond is graphite
       on a good day.

5.    The right blow and the once whole slides
       into two faces. This
        is the beginning of longing,
       why scripture calls marriage
       a cleaving.

6.    I planted pearls and got beds of oysters.
       I planted diamonds and spiderwebs
       glistened. I planted teeth
       and there sprang up soldiers.

7.    The chisel is set
       by patience and skill --
       but the hammer's
       irrevocable moment: that
       is muse.

Who's been reading too much Wallace Stevens? At 3 AM no less.

And I'm not going to get that new-media user-interactive poetry grant unless someone sends me an aphorism.