why the title, i wonder
and the paintings chosen for the cover
though the hell inside is not so simple as Moreau
why did i allow a used bookstore to sell it to me for $21
in front of my mother
when it was already warped at the corner
like someone dipped in the tub
when it traveled across the ocean
sold to the same someone for 20 pounds
at gatwick or heathrow

(but that's modern loving, isn't it?
reading the same book, months apart
in different cities, on similarly piss stained trains
ice and salt drawing mandelbrots on our boots
that's what left to us)

in the smell at the bottom of the washing machine
cold basement stone and wet sand and mold
in underwear hardened with blood
i know there's a religion amongst those pages
if you were so inclined
(who else but a prophet can know that much about so many people?)
a calendar for doom, a new gravity of suffering
support documents for the work of Carlton Pearson
the long ream of research for the thesis of Melancholia
and it's in my hands to help me get right with god

but more truthfully,
it's that our lives glance off each other here too
if only we could see the whole a little better
maybe we sense that there could be sense
that there's a brain in every department
or at least a set of lungs
but kick in the shins, kick in the teeth, kick in the nuts
it's no good to think
we've done anything more than create a new Nature
and god bless you, but you don't find faces behind storms