Laika
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Laika was the first living creature to orbit Earth. A stray dog taken from the streets of Moscow, she was launched aboard Sputnik 2 on November 3, 1957. There was never a plan to bring her home.
This poem is an elegy for her—one small life, silenced in the name of progress, and yet remembered, still, as a pale arc before dawn.
They called it a seat,
but it was a cradle of fire—
metal-wrapped, bolted shut,
no window,
just the hum of wires
and the memory of old Moscow snow
still clinging to your pads.
They fed you well
and fastened you in
with practiced hands
that trembled only later.
You blinked once—
trusting, calm—
a good girl ascending
where no stray should go.
The capsule ticked
like a settling house—
soft clicks and mechanical sighs,
a shifting weight.
You floated slightly,
snout twitching for air,
wrapped in the smell
of aluminum and heat,
no wind, no scent of rain,
no footsteps coming—
only the pulse of Earth receding.
Your breath grew fast,
then faster still—
in a cage of heat.
The tether drew tight,
your heart raced wild—
then slowed,
then stopped.
The straps dissolved
as your soul slipped free—
a wisp of fur,
a flicker of light
curling through circuits
into the stars—
and no one called your name.
They never brought you home,
but I see you sometimes—
a pale arc before dawn,
falling neither fast nor slow,
the ghost of a girl
who once chased shadows
beneath the rusted cars
of Moscow.
Copyright © Roxanne Andorfer | Year Posted 2025
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