The Beginning (Stage 1) It has begun— The men now walk With gleaming weaponry Unscathed and unbroken To their nervous places of Honor before they suffer. Cheers grow louder In tandem with the countdown, The riders’ legs grow heavy With unreleased energy. The stylish industry Of the city gives way To deeply verdant hills And crowd-lined villages. Like finches flashing feathers In the trees, waving ikurriñas Dot the climbs. The road thrashes With an orange river, mountains Bright with fans and flags. But it’s on an empty descent, That a fast corner claims The dreams of two teams— A reminder that the bike Is used not only in the fight Between riders but also Against terrain and weather. On the final hill, a battle Plays out between twins. Mirrors of pain in their eyes, The only difference, perhaps One bottle extra, a little more Hydration, in the battle against The self. The first stage victory Comes with a spell in yellow. The Broken Curse (Stage 2) What nostrum or what vintage of what draught Can drown an age-old nemesis Like failure? Only the sweet champagne Of victory. Before the fog and rain that fell Seemingly without falling, Before the Jaizkibel whittled the peloton To a fine point as if a piece of birch, Before the miscalculation Of speed and distance, There were fifteen years Of brave failure. Fifteen years erased By a red flag’s worth Of sustained wattage. A doomed attack, foolhardy Enough to never be advisable, Almost never successful, Until it is. And then it is unbelievable. The rapturous wingspan Of spread arms, ready to take The whole crowd, the whole of France, The whole world in an embrace For a moment only lived in dreams. A curse broken, leaving Only questions and castaway bottles. Champagne suds spilled on the floor And down the throat. The Roundabout Sprint (Stage 3) The speedsters rage and twist Along the boards holding back The delirious crowds. Behind them and their lead-out Men, the rest of the peloton Whips around each curve Like an endless snake Some charmer has got writhing. We forget about all other riders, Except those forming the snake’s head Those who are the very fangs That will sink into the white stripe Stretching across the road. The first to cross will be credited With the bite that kills the stage. The Racetrack Sprint (Stage 4) As wide as the ocean, The racetrack, predestined To have smoothed out What was harsh and warped By allowing a practical parade Of sprinters, was exposed as false. What was meant for speed And the decibel assault Of high-octane engines Was unmasked As a destruction derby— Carbon bikes skittering Riderless across the open course, Men detached from machines grimacing As the shock of slamming The body into concrete reverberates From tailbone to eyelids. There is danger to such freedom. Allowed to unbunch, The sprinters can only bunch Even more tightly, searching For shelter before launching For the relative safety beyond The finish line. Breakaway Yellow (Stage 5) Over the ponds and over the ravines, Over the mountains, forest, clouds Goes the breakaway, rolling away Like a boulder kicked by the right Leg of gravity. An undeniable mass Of bikes and riders. In it, an overlooked Contender, content to surf the wheels Through the fog and cacophony of Mountain climbs, until the pedal-dance Of the ascending attack. Away he goes, Toward freshman victory, while behind Two mountain goats–domestique and Leader–rip the race like a ticket stub. The first blow between the main pugilists Has been landed and the bell for their dance around the nation-sized ring booms From the summit to the valley below. Burning Revenge (Stage 6) Crowd chaos— Revving motos tightrope Along the tips of spectator toes, Polka dot t-shirts flap flag-like As their owners sprint With literal rockets Spitting red smoke Alongside the dueling duo. On this loud but otherwise innocuous Corner of mountain road, The white jersey chooses To attack, out of the saddle for a second As if simply maintaining tempo Before launching out of the acrid cloud That burns hot behind him, Filling his lungs with breath crimson as the sun in dirty skies. He feeds the burn All the way to the line, bowing In acknowledgement That he’s raked the coals Of the race back into an inferno. The Almost Man (Stage 7) A very simple And straightforward pain Powers a sprint. The world blurs And existence occurs Outside the body, Outside time. Trust is Placed only in the mechanics Of physics and Simple machinery. Movement is simply An explosion, Like a missile breaking The bonds of gravity. The right side of the road Is open, and a rider bursts Into the air. So free, So unencumbered By the need to follow The nearest wheel, For a frozen moment, It seems like he’ll make it To the line first. Almost. Almost. Almost. Wounded (Stage 8) O tumble to the collarbone O horizon O refuge for the gaze of disbelief Where shall the inextinguishable fire Burn now? Climb’s Oblivion (Stage 9) The cyclist’s nightmare Is to become a flower Crushed in a fist A body of wood smoke A posture like a drip of honey Into the dirt When the cyclist is Inside the cave of sad oblivion He is a scarecrow In a downpour And every muscle Is a whirlpool of pain The passage of time Binds him as tightly As laces for a boot This is giving everything This is what awaits Beyond limitation Beyond tragic heroism On cruel volcanic slopes In the silence That can only exist Close to the vault Of the sky
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