never closer the whole rest of our lives
than that night we caught celestial lies
flaming comets cryptic and precise
appear in sequence through the sky

we made a satellite our home
and named the galaxies we formed
with unharnessed disposition you led me on a space walk
turned around, let go of my hand
closed the sputnik hatch without looking back

the Pleiades gleam jewel-wise against the softest black
extending a thin thread for me to grab
glittering as I float in the vastness unafraid
of what I never saw on Earth

stranded forever in space
like a Russian cosmonaut of the canine kind
paralleling a bark and a sigh on our last orbital sunrise