Schoolkids in Tuscon named
the last jaguar standing
El Jefe
The Boss.
He prowls
the Santa Rita Mountains
an immigrant
from the Sierra Madre.
The last jaguar before him
Macho B
lured with female scat
killed in a botch-job in 2009.
The last jaguar in Texas
shot in 1948, the last
female jaguar in the US
shot the same year as JFK.
The Jaguar God of the Night
Lord of the Underworld.
In Mexican Spanish
the jaguar is el tigre.
Jaguar comes
from the native yaguar
he who kills with one leap.
Jaguars avoid
and rarely attack us.
Solitary.
Elusive.
Their rosettes help them
disappear
in dappled
deep-forest light.
Hard to spot
let alone count.
El Jefe can be known
by his unique coat.
Where jaguars once roamed
the Southwest freely
El Jefe hunts alone.
The Wall
would keep females out,
dooming El Jefe
to be the very last.
The Ese Ejja
People of the Amazon say
The Jaguar
only shows himself to you
when you are ready to see him.
—
Barbara Ungar’s sixth book, After Naming the Animals, is new from The Word Works, which also published Immortal Medusa and Charlotte Brontë, You Ruined My Life. Prior books include Save Our Ship, which won the Snyder Publication Prize from Ashland Poetry Press, and The Origin of the Milky Way, which won the Gival Poetry Prize. Professor emerita from The College Formerly Known as St Rose, she lives in Saratoga Springs, New York. www.barbaraungar.net
