Vladimir Mayakovsky
Good Treatment of Horses

The hooves clattered.
As if singing:
— Crib.
Grab.
Grub.
Gruff.

Drunk with the wind,
ice-shod,
the street slid away,
a horse landed
with a wallop on its crupper,
and instantly,
gaper after gaper,
boot-cut pants on Kuznetskii,
ganged up
with laughter and twang:
— The horse fell down! —
— It fell down, the horse! —
All of Kuznetskii was guffawing.
Only I alone
did not add my voice to the hooting.
Came closer
and saw the horse’s eyes…

The whole street keeled over,
adrift on its own…
I came closer and saw —
A drop after drop
trickling down the snout,
hiding in the mane.

And some kind of general
animal grief
splashingly poured out of me
and dissolved in the rustle:
“Horse, don’t.
Horse, listen —
what do you think, that you are flatter than them?
Sweetheart,
we are all a little like horses,
every one of us is a horse in their own way.”
Perhaps
it was old enough
and did not need a nanny,
maybe my thinking seemed vulgar to it,
only
that
the horse
jerked up
on its hooves,
neighed
and went away.
Waving its tail.
A red-headed child.
Came happy
to stand in the stable.
And it seemed to her —
that she was a foal,
and that living was worth it,
and work was worth it too.

Translated by Erika Kleijmans