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Published: Fri Jul 1 2005
Eva Lundsager, Were now like (detail), 2021, oil on canvas
Great Basin

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 lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and son. His work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Black Warrior Review, Jubilat, and Court Green. (updated 2009)

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