El sol era caliente
y el toro
era frio de miedo.
El pobre toro.
The poor bull,
how aterrorizados was he
to make a giant leap
climbing into the stands
over the wooden barrier,
scaling concrete wall
and iron railing?
El toro no tenía nada más que perder.
Only then did the fear
of the people
match the fright of a bull
who knew for sure
when he heard
the first cheers of the crowd
that injury and death,
las lesiones y la muerte,
were inevitable
for him this day.
Laura A. Ciraolo was born in New York City and has lived and worked there as long as she can remember. She has poems currently in the New York Quarterly #66 and Poets for Living Waters. Her poems have appeared in Agenda (UK), The Centrifugal Eye, The Long Island Quarterly, Orbis (UK), iota (UK), MiPoesias, and The Comstock Review among others. She has a poem forthcoming in The Cortland Review in November, and she was a finalist for the 2010 Bordighera Poetry Prize.