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