NOT MY CIRCUS

But this is my circus: the bareback rider dancing in perfect balance between the prancing horses, the spangled artists on the flying trapeze. The fire-eaters are mine, the jugglers, the troupe riding unicycles across the wire. The whole sideshow is mine. These are my elephants, stolen from the forests; these are my unhappy lions. The clowns, of course, are mine, emerging from their tiny car, swarming around the ring, beeping their noses, stumbling over their feet. But the monkeys? No. Not the monkeys. This lot of monkeys was never mine.