Saviors

I was hoping for Hercules, but he's just too dumb.
Sure he's strong, frankly none stronger. If I needed

a truck hauled by hand through a tsunami, he'd be
my man. But he's so dumb, when he gets hot, he cocks

his arrow at the sun. He's so dumb he yells and believes
the waves will still. I see him in the lifeguard chair.

I could be a teenybopper gazing up from the base.
I could bleach and pluck and hope a string bikini

makes me one of the crowd and the one picked.
I wanted to be a savior, but Angela, my student

who wears high heels through gravel and mud,
cannot learn the paragraph. I'm not talking

the concept here, like what a new idea might be,
I'm talking one push on the tab key, just

an index finger exerting a little pressure. Every time
she doesn't hit it, and she doesn't ever, I fail.

When I was trolling after Hercules, I met Atlas
up to his neck in darkness, up to his brows in clouds.

Night and Day don't stop to bring him water.
He had a chance to save himself. But along came

Hercules, Here, buddy, could you hold this? I'll be right back.
I've been tricked into taking back a video, paying

a bus fare. I wonder if that's ever happened to Angela?
She's so steady, will hold one idea--her right to think

spiritually which means, as far as I can tell, without
logic or coherency, with only the sounds

of scripture and not their meaning--in her tight-fisted brain
until the rest of us crack and turn to dust. Even Atlas

might stumble; she'll keep preaching that word. The mole
between my breasts has turned darker I think.

It's the one that marks the boundary: you look nice
tonight do you have to dress like that. I've loved it

all my life. Angela would condemn my carnal mind.
Atlas too burdened to look. I could stop reading it

like Braille, my fingers running over the oval. I could stop
staring and see a doctor. It's probably nothing, my

imagination. I need to pick up the phone, press a few keys.
Sorry, so terribly sorry, that would be Hercules.

Deborah Bacharach
Saranac Review 2009