Becoming the Jaguar by Martin Malone

I am the jaguar.

I am the black striped,

quail feathered priest of Tezcatlipoca,

the night, the hunter.

He who formed the land

from the body of Cipactli, the crocodile.

It is Tezcatlipoca who reigns over

all the realms of the worlds.

As I taste the bitter cactus flesh,

the viscid bite of the mushroom,

feel the heart pulse of the drums,

as the obsidian blade draws my blood,

the changes come.

I balance on the edges

of the worlds,

travel between the realms.

First the scents—

air thickens,

becomes rich

with a thousand threads

of all that is around me.

My eyes now blister in the daylight,

char in the sun glare.

In the dark, I see far.

Talons and teeth swell, sharpen.

My feet soft silent pads.

I crush bone in my jaws.

Invisible in the night forest,

I hear every scuttle and scramble

of prey sidling through trees and brush

seeking night’s cloak.

I am Tezcatlipoca—

obsidian smoking mirror

of the night sky.

Sorcery, war, and vengeance

are mine.

On the edge of the world ocean,

the primordial sea,

many mouthed Cipactli took my foot

as I lured him closer.

My teeth tore

through thick scales,

the scute shield of his head,

as I slew him.

I stretched his body

to the four cardinal directions.

He became all

the lands of the world.

I am the jaguar.

I am the night.

I am the hunter

who sees, hears, smells,

feels, tastes the world.

I created the land.

The realms of all the worlds

are mine.

Bio

Martin Malone’s poems have appeared in a number of publications, including Seminary Ridge Review, Pennsylvania Bards Against Hunger, Backbone Mountain Review (Poem of the Year 2022), CentraLit, and The Maryland Literary Review and Northern Appalachia Review. His chapbook, Simple Gifts, was published in 2014. He is an organizer of Gettysburg’s First Friday Poetry Series. He lives in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Author's note

Jaguars (Nahuatl ocelotl), the largest of the American cats are objects of fear and awe and reverence in many indigenous American cultures. It is commonly believed that people can become were-jaguars and that when a jaguar is encountered it may in fact be a human “inhabiting” a jaguar’s skin. Transition from one form to another is perhaps a universal of religious belief. Among the Mexica (correct term rather than Aztec), Tezcatlipoca is one of the creator gods and his nagual, (his animal counterpart) is the jaguar. His priests take on the character of jaguars, though I am stretching the idea a bit for the poem’s sake, when I have them actually becoming jaguars.