TOUR GUIDE


Achilles, the tour guide
cut us loose
from idols
without an excuse
in the temple of Zeus,
he, once a model, sailor
marathon runner
and an explorer among cups
and saucers in a dig
who recovered cargo
and a big treasure
under a civilization's Kultur
by a ship's rig
also played harmonica
telling us vocally in Greece
he was once suicidal
until he met Jesus
at the fourteenth station
in Salonika
while I lit a candle
in the local synagogue
for the Jews
who who were crying out
during the last war
rounded up by the Nazis
in the Occupation
wishing for a secret angel
yet fleeced with a passion
like the pagan Jason.