Not Horses by Natalie Shapero
Not Horses
Natalie ShaperoWhat I adore is not horses, with their modern
domestic life span of 25 years. What I adore
is a bug that lives only one day, especially if
it’s a terrible day, a day of train derailment or
chemical lake or cop admits to cover-up, a day
when no one thinks of anything else, least of all
that bug. I know how it feels, born as I’ve been
into these rotting times, as into sin. Everybody’s
busy, so distraught they forget to kill me,
and even that won’t keep me alive. I share
my home not with horses, but with a little dog
who sees poorly at dusk and menaces stumps,
makes her muscle known to every statue.
I wish she could have a single day of language,
so that I might reassure her don’t be afraid —
our whole world is dead and so can do you no harm.
SELECTED BY NOAH FALCK
So many of Natalie’s poems possess a unique and compelling power: they draw the reader in like sharing a joke or make you feel like you are part of an inside joke (What I adore / is a bug that lives only one day, especially if /it’s a terrible day), only for the humor to pivot into a profound observation (I know how it feels, born as I’ve been / into these rotting times, as into sin).
Her poems stay with me, I think, because of her brilliant ability to blur the gravity and absurdity of our everyday lives. Her poems make me want to look closer, and in that looking laugh and eventually, cry.
The final three lines of the poem simply take my head off:
I wish she could have a single day of language,
so that I might reassure her don’t be afraid —
our whole world is dead and so can do you no harm.
I love Natalie’s work, her mind, how she opens a reader with comic, lyrical observations and closes with a profound hook.
ABOUT NOAH FALCK
Noah Falck is the author of the poetry collections Exclusions (Finalist for the 2020 Believer Book Award) and Snowmen Losing Weight as well as several chapbooks including the co-written collection, Prerecorded Weather (Winner of the James Tate Poetry Prize). His poems have appeared in the Kenyon Review, Literary Hub, Ploughshares, Poetry Daily, Poets.org, Poetry Northwest, and anthologized in Poem-A-Day 365 Poems for Every Occasion. He lives in Buffalo, New York, where he works as Literary Director at Just Buffalo Literary Center and curates the Silo City Reading Series, a multimedia poetry event series.
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SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in Hard Child by Natalie Shapero, published by Copper Canyon Press, 2022. (Available on: Amazon • Bookshop)
DESCRIPTION
“Thought-provoking and sardonically expressive, Shapero is a self-proclaimed “hard child” unafraid of directly addressing bleakness as she continually asks what it means to be human and to bring new life into the world. Hard Child is musical and argumentative, deadly serious yet tinged with self-parody, evoking the spirit of Plath while remaining entirely its own.” (Source)
ABOUT NATALIE SHAPERO
Natalie Shapero is the author of the poetry collections Stay Dead (Copper Canyon Press, 2025); Popular Longing (Copper Canyon, 2021); Hard Child (Copper Canyon, 2017); and No Object (Saturnalia, 2013). Shapero lives in Los Angeles and teaches writing at the University of California, Irvine. (Source)
Read more poems by Natalie Shapero • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Follow on Instagram • Website • Or view my library
ENDNOTES
- This is Day 30 of Poems We Carry, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Read A Little Poetry—a living archive I’ve nurtured for two decades. For this milestone series, I invited writers I deeply admire to share poems that have meant something to them over time.
- Explore other works in pursuit of: compassion • oblivion • decay • Or browse the index
- If this work resonates with you, please consider supporting the archive. Thank you for reading.
