Laika Poem by Dave Lewis

Although it was cold, so very cold, on the streets of Moscow at least we had each other. Huddled in doorways, scurrying through subways, riding the train to Red Square, scavenging beneath St Basils, wandering through Gorky and begging for frankfurters or boiled sausage outside the backdoors of restaurants and lapping up kefir from the drains. As a baby I'd been brave, learning to survive on the streets like that but when they took me and confined me in that small cage I have to admit I was a little bit scared. Then came the laxatives and the centrifuges and the scalpel cuts bathed with iodine. Dr Yazdovsky let me play with his children a while and for those brief minutes I had high hopes for the future. I was quiet and charming so they say. But when you gave me that final kiss on the nose I suppose deep down inside I knew my destiny lay among the stars. Alone, in silence, I watched the world spinning round, one thousand miles below. Then on the fourth lap I felt the temperature rise and I suppose I just shut my eyes for a moment. I was only three years old.