I Read About Laika for the First Time

Because bombed-out cities
on what was the Silk Road can never
bring back their dead,

people felt it necessary to test
first by launching
into orbit a small

brindled dog.
Who were the scientists
who trained her, implanted

electrodes in her opened skin,
and kissed her nose before
they sealed her in?

They recorded her heart
exploding into two hundred and forty
beats a minute,

in a metal capsule so tight
she couldn’t curl
nose-to-tail.

We never planned to bring
her back. How casually
we inflict ourselves,

our dying, on every possible
being. As if we’ll never slip
into Hieronymus’s dark real

mouths feeding dark
real mouths.

Read more from Issue 22.1.