You wonder where your voice has gone. In what tenement window did you leave it?

In this world, clowns are carried to heaven on bicycles and the chandeliers drip with girls. The Spaniard on the tightrope will pirouette in a cloud of sparkling red dust. Abandoned angel's wings are strewn behind the curtains. The gymnasts play catch with a midget held aloft by a cluster of white balloons. And still you find yourself sighing as the parade of giants and harlequins in their finery walk past.

You believe too much in paper promises. Take note of pauses. It is the spaces between that tell you how long you have to wait.

A father knows only the secrets that his daughter keeps when she leaves behind her wolf-skin at the advent of the harvest moon.