An old cry at fairs, the showman having promised his credulous hearers that as soon as enough pennies are collected his donkey will balance himself on the top of a pole or ladder. Always a matter of “two more pennies,”the trick is never performed.
—Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
Old men
who were boys then
continue to imagine
how it would have been
to see a donkey
balancing above them.
Some see all four
small hooves
compressed on
the post top;
some see one.
It depends upon
which penny
wasn’t spent,
which trick
wasn’t done.