Duet

If love is just an impulse meant to bring
two tiny hearts together, skittering
like hamsters from their Quonsets late at night
in search of lust’s productive exercise,

If love is the mutation of some gene
made radiant — an accident of bliss
played out by two small actors on a screen
of silver mesh, who never even kiss,

If love is evolution, nature’s way
of sorting out its DNA in pairs,
of matching, mating, sculpting flesh’s clay,
why does my wrinkled hamster climb his stairs

to set his wheel revolving, then descend
and stagger off... to make hers fly again?