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.