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And all the circus ponies had to go home   I   In the ticket booth a woman chews gum She’s thin, but in a way I don’t begrudge, which isn’t like me I ask, ‘Where have the performers come from?’ because I know he will ask me this later I know because I know him She chews at me She shrugs and I decide I’ll say Russia, because he has a thing about Russia   II   The acrobat’s hair was yellow, long, and bluntly cut to match the ponies’ tails They would perform for her, only She would dismount from the tightrope like a yoyo, landing at the centre of the ponies’ circle From above their formation might have been an asterisk   III   Her actual plummeting was unscripted, so at odds with the music I felt nauseous Once we got to grips with the idea we were prepared for horror We were ready for her limbs, all akimbo, her neck at an impossible angle I saw a woman cover a child’s eyes with something like foresight She was supposed to plummet She was supposed to drop like a stone like a penny like a raindrop like a well-worn simile on a disillusioned readership We waited for the ripples in the yellow sand; our eyes fixed on the ground   We waited for her body to appear in the crosshairs on the surface of our eyes We couldn’t help our subsequent disappointment I saw the woman uncover the child’s eyes with something like embarrassment We averted our collective gaze upwards and found her We’d been duped She hung like a bird feeder from the safety net; her hair was knotted round her throat and round the mesh Her limbs swayed like hollow tubes on a wind chime   IV   The crowd hourglass’d through the tent entrance The motion made me think of an arrow on a woman’s midriff in an ad for probiotic yoghurt The people murmured with one voice Refunds would be processed as soon as possible   V   She wore her loneliness like a leotard, tight at the upper thighs and under arms She fed the ponies what she fed herself, which isn’t