The Audacity of the Jaguar   My world is not your world. Who was here first? And who is the master? My amber eyes, they’re voiceless mirrors — imagine the worst of me, call me coward, devil, beast. Why   should I burden myself with your fears? You peer into these eyes and see nothing that you know beyond your own reflection. Who are you now? My wanderings are no matter   of yours — if you gaze into my coat of a thousand eyes, I melt into smoke, into spirit, into memory. Go to bed now, lie beside your wife. That low   cough — just her soft snoring? Sleep. Dream your dreams of all that you will do with fences, fire — your farm, your finca — oh, how it all seems to be yours. And when you awaken, I   recede and I wait and I watch until you send your shadow man. And I’ll remain here, hidden, choosing what I want to kill. Closer — I can bite you through to the brain.                                                               for Alan Rabinowitz     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont March 2014