Once I spent the summer in a town on Cape Cod, working at a restaurant like a thousand other college kids. Walking home one night, alone in the dark from the bar we all went to after work, a car passed by and an unknown someone in it called my name. Alisonnnnn. I can still hear that voice.

Do you ever sense something just beyond your vision or hearing or touch, you but not you? Someone or something you almost but don’t remember, or an animal whose eyes you once met and whose gaze you held, or a feeling that comes to you in a dream. As if someone or something is watching over you, waiting for you to come home, to remember who you once were.

Horse, by Katie Chaple

I look for it in my memory, and sometimes
it will not arrive, that horse that is all horses
is lost in some distant music.
The shadows under the tree are empty,
the shape of the horse that is not there.
When I was a horse, when I was drumbeat
carving the grass becomes a melody
lost to wind. Wind recalls the horse,
reminds of the twitching ears. It stalks
the back field alone, minds the sky, turns
its head to note time of day. Estranged,
it flickers, and I am spellbound waiting
for the refrain to return. I listen
for the wonder, with sun at its back,
to pound in a joy that holds the field open.

Click here for more information about poet Katie Chaple. Today’s poem was first published in 2026 by the Academy of American Poets.

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