Laika

[a vermits]

If it's an honor to be the first dog in space
I can't see it

I’d rather run with my teeth in the pre-dawn frost
fresh with the taste of rabbit
than sit still
among incidental stars.

Knowing circumstance turns its back
with the rabid mercy of wolves
moonlighting as wrecker men,
their cold noses trained for calamity.

Mongrel instinct conditioned to recognize
the yawning cracks of malevolent hands
split raw with gunpowder

Interlopers
under fur-lined jackets,

Alien hoards,
eyes: snow blind and blue

a nostolgia, this cruel labor:
an impatient whore
in her last days of
believable dress white,

and in defense
I learned Cowboy Music from stolen cable,
prayer from a collapsing lung
obedience from science
pity - I learn pity from everyone  

as she in deference
played the sun on her skin
warm, raw sandpapered skin
unable to answer a single question

or consider this  space
where the dark
sticks to your skin
like humanity
was stuck to the earth,

Oh, Laika
I’ve seen you
in the children of circumstance
in the taxes I pay, the percentage

I see you at night Laika
jester of glorious city states
in vomit stained taxi-cabs
selling charm

I see you Laika
soft on your belly

Laika
I see you underhand
I see you underfoot
I see you underground
taken care of by worms

hidden behind large paws
you never asked for
dear Laika

and to think, you once said
if creation seems fit to smile on the small
then what trouble is seven years after all?