This is a word we use to plug
　　holes with. It's the right size for those warm
　　blanks in speech, for those red heart-
　　shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
　　like real hearts. Add lace
　　and you can sell
　　it. We _insert_ it also in the one empty
　　space on the printed form
　　that comes with no instructions. There are whole
　　magazines with not much in them
　　but the word love, you can
　　rub it all over your body and you
　　can cook with it too. How do we know
　　it isn't what goes on at the cool
　　debaucheries of slugs under damp
　　pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
　　seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
　　among the lettuces, they shout it.
　　Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
　　their glittering knives in salute.
　　
　　Then there's the two
　　of us. This word
　　is far too short for us, it has only
　　four letters, too sparse
　　to fill those deep bare
　　vacuums between the stars
　　that press on us with their deafness.
　　It's not love we don't wish
　　to fall into, but that fear.
　　this word is not enough but it will
　　have to do. It's a single
　　vowel in this metallic
　　silence, a mouth that says
　　O again and again in wonder
　　and pain, a breath, a finger
　　grip on a cliffside. You can
　　hold on or let go.