Laika

It wasn’t your fault

It wasn’t your choice

Heat and fear and suffocating metal

The universe’s reward for being kind

Your first breath, in some alley somewhere

Your last, in the darkest pit science could throw you

Were you happy? Did you trust them?

Even if you had known, would it have mattered?

The public looked on for weeks, pointing you out in the sky

Was it enough, their excitement? Did it keep your ghost alive?

It is not their fault they pointed, they thought it was still you up there

It is not your fault it wasn’t, I’m sure you would have stayed if you could have

But first, gravity releases its hold on you

102

You play

For the first time, you get to play

You are weightless, and you are free, and you are Laika

And then the heat,

And then the door stays ever-closed

They watch from a room millions of miles away as your heart rate speeds up

They will not come to get you

240

They were never going to get you

0

For five months you were a shape

In a spinning metal can, and that was progress

For ten days you were something to look for in the sky

For five hours you were a cosmonaut

And then five months later your tomb plummeted into the ocean 

And the atmosphere clawed you to shreds

And the Earth that had borne you would not let you home

You did not get flowers, you did not get a bed

Ash and ice and floating in one dark, starless cosmos

I hope the stars welcomed you back, once your body had gone

I hope that they were kind to you

It is not your fault 

It is not your choice

There is stardust in your veins

I hope they string you up a constellation