​

 

Mating Call Of The Last Wild Jaguar In The United States​

​

Maybe you’ve been taken. Know this:
I’ve never been captured.
 

I dodge bullets. I evade the hounds.

I leave the ranchers defeated.

I eat their chickens. Their children.
Capture their imaginations.

You’re thinking what I’m thinking.

Let’s do like our ancestors did. Breed.

Perhaps you have heard my other names.
El Jefe. Mr. Macho. The Shadow.

But you can call me anything you want.

Call me something familiar.
 

A secret name our kind shares.
If you’re still out there.

​

 

 

Vincent Antonio Rendoni is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection Dead Chicano Mixtape (Red Hen Press, 2027) and A Grito Contest in the Afterlife (Catamaran, 2022), winner of the Catamaran Poetry Prize as selected by Dorianne Laux. His work has appeared in AGNI, Prairie Schooner, Alaska Quarterly Review, Ninth Letter, and Pleiades. He lives in White Center, WA.

​