INSTANTANÉ TOUR DE FRANCE, 20 JULI 2019
by Gerard Sarnat
Marking world’s premier bike race’s 100th anniversary
of awarding maillot jaune
to twenty-three-day-torture end-of-each-stage’s overall
leader thru Pyrenees/Alps
before finishing in front of cheering crowds on Paris’s
renowned Champs-Élysées
peleton in full cry against vagaries of the open road
becomes sudden single-lane
stenosis with horned ox hip-checking anything moves
including one hog-slaughter
protestor whom our gendarmes tear gas to clear a path.
Not a typical stadium sport
chaos is their office where competitors must work with
subordinate domestiques
in service to team’s #1 prospect to deliver bacon painted
golden -- farmers raise
signs for TV coverage against reintroducing bears/wolves
who devour livestock.