The Bullfight

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The Bullfight

We paid extra to sit on the shady side

of the the Plaza de Toros de Monumental.

White handkerchiefs in our hands to

to wave and mop our brows.

The bull was splendid, an ancient, mighty,

visitor, we should have knelt in supplication.

Nothing was alive as he. His hooves

trampled the sand, his breath was thunder.

The matador entered the ring like dawn,

golden spangles, a dancer’s body, and

that cape! Magenta and gold, a living

thing swirling in front of the bull.

As a child I rescued broken-winged birds,

three-legged kittens, and blind hamsters.

No creature was beyond my ministering

grace, no bug too ugly to be redeemed

But then, as blood flowed like lava

down the black velvet of the bulls

legs, and the bull fighter bared his chest

before the exhausted animal

I realized, startled, that blood calls to blood

and I felt my heart race, and I yelled

as loudly as anyone in the crowd when

the sword pierced between the shoulder

blades and filled the bull’s lungs with blood.