Fauverie by Pascale Petit

Author:Pascale Petit
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Seren

Squirrel Monkey

Because today every breath is a struggle

I show you a photo of Baker

the first monkey to survive in space.

She’s in a capsule no bigger than a thermos.

She wears a tiny helmet and space suit,

a respiration meter fixed to her nose.

All we can see is her face, eyes looking up,

mouth slightly open, her tail pinned

beside her head. Her companion Able,

the rhesus monkey, is in a separate cubicle.

She is alone. Imagine, I say, that you’re

strapped into the nose cone of a missile

shot into space. See the flash as you defy

Earth’s gravity and enter weightlessness.

Your breathing quietens

as if you’ve risen free of your bed

and the gifts of life float around you.

You’re concentrating on the rocket

and its little explorer, the trust

that she’ll re-enter our atmosphere.

What does she think is happening?

As soon as Earth vanishes it reappears,

the whole blue-and-green jewel,

clouds parted like the moment

of re-entry to this room – an ocean of air

hurtling towards you, blue sheets on fire.

Now Baker is lighting up the sea

off Antigua, as she zooms down,

bobs, then is retrieved.You smile

as I describe the opening of her bio-pack,

how she scampers out and chews peanuts.

You want to know everything – the press conference,

how the ship’s captain held her like a doll,

how Able died soon after, but not

Baker. She lived twenty-five more years

and even now, children place bananas on her grave.

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