The Tent

I’ve had that dream again

of musk and wet

the earth a flower

reaching up beneath sawdust

for the hip bone

that presses closest to the dirt

I would not sleep

if not for the small circle of light

where the pole pushes

through the sky’s fabric

and a miniscule glimmer

of moon trickles down

the fabricated wall

          when I was small

I heard the sound of a rabbit

grazing nearby

and a bull hollering on-heat

under the drape of the seasons

I thought of smaller and smaller homes

(burrows cans shells)

because of this I am able

to diminish myself

become a ball a marble

fluff

it’s as if

when the noise of the world

overruns the camp

I am safely camouflaged

but it is at night

when clothes

lie fallow

and audiences drift away

I see the soaring dirty lid

of canvas open

and the stars arranged

in a show unparalleled

Jennifer Harrison