For all its glitter, diamond
is only carbon, never mind
differences in price, quality, prestige.

Carbon, they said, was black, ugly,
so they changed the refractive index,
used it as lead to shoot
graphitic holes in paper masks,
then realised it could be polished
to still greater purposes and made
what we call a diamond
The softness
gradually became hard.

Today only another diamond
can cut me.