IN DISTRESS

There was so much to worry about

and only a few heroes to right

all the wrongs, that soon we had

to invent superbeings that would

swoop down to recitify, out-joke

the jokers, keep the plutonium

hidden in a cluster of clouds.

Evil always has an advantage

and always succeeds

until its enormous feet understep

some moral chasm, or a damsel

held dear by the populace cries out

and is heard. Then we’re made aware

evil’s job is to galvanize the unlikely,

to stir the ordinary man.

Salvation, however, needs

more than one story, in more

than one language, its heroes perhaps

thinking something like how the hell

do I get out of this jam, something

like that, personal and small.