Laika: 1957 Soviet space dog, one of the first animals in space and the first to orbit Earth, she died from overheating. Laika’s craft, Sputnik 2, and her remains, disintegrated on re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.
Laika
Moscow street-mutt, unloved
stray. Eleven pounds of bone,
of pelt, of tail. Who can weigh
the heart of dog? What dials
or instruments may measure
loyalty; the desire, hard-wired,
to obey? Dogs have no gods,
know only to worship the hand
that feeds. There is no canine
word for pray. Brave little
cosmonaut, faithful to a fault;
caught and collared, Earth no
more than a distant ball with
which you cannot play. How
the words that sent you on
your way crackle through
the ragged dishes of your ears,
a comet’s tail of breaking
syllables that even now leave
their trail: Laika, in. Laika, lay.
Good girl, Laika. Wait. Stay.
This poem was a runner-up in the Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize in 2019, and was published in the Keats-Shelley Review, going on to be variously republished. I was deeply moved when I first read of little Laika’s plight, and, if readers’ responses to my poem are an indication, it’s a story that continues to resonate today.
© Sarah Doyle