The Jaguar
Caron Andregg
She walked through bright suburban rooms
Cloaked in her own night, like a wild thing
Only seeming to be tame. Like the circus
When it came to your scrap-metal town
And parked its timeless painted,
Peeling vans in a fermata
Out behind the five and dime
Semi-circled, semi-safe,
Palmists and jugglers and freaks,
Creaking rides with barkers quick
To catch the drips of raining coins,
Swoop, scoop, clutch, then look away.
And in the center, the menagerie
Toothless bears and sloths
Without their claws, spiderlike
Cornered in their narrow pens.
Pygmy hippos like hefty bags
Stacked steaming in the sun.
And to the side, a jaguar paced
The measure of his rage
Step, step, drop shouldered,
Turn and twirl and then again
Across his tiny cage.
His coat was spotted in its proper way,
And here and there with mange
And with mishandling.
Yet in the spaces in between
And in the center of each swirl
He carried his own jungle.
Its humid, fecund scent
Smoked up from his hot skin
And burnt your lips with longing.
Then, in a flash, he slashed out your
Slim throat with ancient, liquid eyes
Which were not sad, but only said
“I wait.”
