Great Basin

by Ian Harris

The car boiled over
on a perished piece of desert

it was a black Saab
beached in the stars

I slept two peaceful hours
on bitterbrush

before following
sag of power lines

to a circus tent
glowing by itself

camphor yellow
cindery bodies moving inside

I didn’t open the tent flap
but I warmed my hands on the blurry gypsies

balancing on ponies
swallowing swords

like the complicated
lattice of a campfire

 

Ian Harris grew up in Twin Falls, Idaho. He studied anthropology at the University of Oregon, where he developed an interest in Western
archaeological issues. He now lives in Chicago and attends Columbia College’s MFA program in poetry.