Maybe just a scratch I think in the morning
as, clutching coffee and bags, we run
for the train, arrive in Pamplona crowded
with people greeting each other loudly
and the sun so bright I squint, so hot pounding
down on my neck I’m already red,
as soon as we hit the old town we buy red
scarves and sashes for tomorrow morning,
bars overflow into the street pounding
bands play, we walk the route of the bull run
all the way to the corrals, where loud
Aussies plan their strategy in a crowd
we find Hemingway’s Café Iruna, it’s crowded
but we get a table and order lunch from a red-
faced waiter, he rushes amongst loud
revelers who have been drinking all morning
I can’t believe I’m really here for the running
of the bulls up in a balcony at dawn heart pounding
frantic runners pass below five bulls pound
by but a lone bull tears through the crowds
no one can move fast enough to outrun
him as he stops, turns, charges, brilliant red
blood flows from those he meets his last morning
and it’s dawn again waiting in the street loud
speakers blaring my pulse beats even louder
a hush and the rockets fire my blood pounds
hands cold stomach twisting the whole morning
builds to this instant panic grips the crowd
all around press male bodies stained red
with spilled wine fear on the air the first runners
fly by and people fall I can only run
a few steps as the bulls come fast and loud
in a blurred entourage of white and red
they pass massive thunderous pounding
and, thankfully oblivious to me in the crowd,
are gone, oh! I’m happy to be alive this morning
to taste churros after the run--still feeling pounding
hooves, laughing loudly, unscratched, outside our crowded
café, under hot air balloons rising red in the clear morning.
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