Laika

Before we said
you're breaking up

I loved my walkie-talkie's
static song, dialed

placid satellites
where weightless

dogs barking
in Russian sipped

vodka through
barber poles

while all along
as Malashenkov,

late of the Institute
for Biological Problems

told the BBC
it was only Laika,

a brindled bitch
who strayed all the way

from Nevsky Prospekt
to the brazen steppes