and geckos. Fruit flies, kernels of com.
Amoebas and bacteria. Black mice
and white mice. Once upon a time a dog
named Laika ascended in Sputnik 2,
egregious PR on account of no plan
for a safe return. But once they figured out
re-entry, up went Belka and Strelka,
public support. Two Russian tortoises,
a posse of mealworms, a few dozen
wine flies, all aboard Zond 5, first
orbiting of the moon. Before a human
could venture into weightlessness,
six rhesus monkeys named Albert preceded
,
each one charmed with his own uniquely
abysmal end—explosions, suffocation,
failing parachutes. The French launched
Felicette, electrodes jammed beneath
feline skin, transmitting her condition
to the safely on the ground. More than hers
a hundred miles above our penny-loafered feet,
I wonder about the condition of the brains
beneath bouffanted, mop-topped heads,
of a wavering between staunchest enemies
and let's-do-this-moon-thing-together friends.
A dozen gerbils 350 miles above me as I type,
high-tech gadgets sucking up ethereal waste
for the broken-free and the gravity-blessed
for the constantly pulled in, constantly falling back.
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