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.