Jaguar

Nasal intonations of light
and clicking tongues. . .
publicity of windows 
stoning me with pent-up cries 
smells of abattoirs. . . 
smells of long-dead meat. 

Some day-end—
while the sand is yet cozy as a blanket 
off the warm body of a squaw, 
And the jaguars are out to kill. . .
with a blue-black night coming on 
and a painted cloud 
stalking the first star—
I shall go alone into the Silence. . .
the coiled Silence. . .
Where a cry can run only a little way 
and waver and dwindle 
and be lost. 

And there. . .
where tiny antlers clinch and strain 
as life grapples in a million avid points, 
and threshing things 
strike and die, 
Letting their hate live on 
in the spreading purple of a wound. . .
I too 
will make covert of a crevice in the night, 
and turn and watch. . .
nose at the cleft’s edge.