Official Happiness

The cosmonaut returned to Earth said moonshine



was what he’d missed, and wurst. He described



space: weightlessness feels nice, there is plenty



of candy stuffed in the hatch-flap, et cetera



and the kids think you’re a hero. You distract



yourself with streets named after you, men in stiff-brimmed hats



glinting their teeth and their brass buttons, jangling your hand…



 



those thoughts are off the record. Asleep on the ceiling



of someone’s utopian dream, the poster toddlers warble



encouragements from rosebud mouths: Glory



To Breastmilk, To the Countryside Electrified, To War



Bonds and Corn and the bravery of slow



animals who have no choice. Glory to your mom



and the soldier who opened her like a fat clutch



 



and closed her up again, tenderly



and left for the front before you weaseled your



wet red way out. The pipes of your *Stalinka*



are still leaking sour water from the birthmark spreading



its tea-colored mold across the white. Your life



will be busy and short and in the end you’ll lose



sensation in your legs. Two hundred million friends



will weep as newscasters gasp platitudes



 



in the imperial tongue. The birch trees creak and sway,



creak and sway above the grove where the young



pioneers of tomorrow will carry your corpse



carnations, whistling The Motherland Hears,



The Motherland Knows… Your last thought: Korolyov



patting the pure white fuselage lovingly, grinning,



“The bastards, they’re recording everything.”



 



 



*  Stalinka: the colloquial name for a style of apartment building constructed in the Soviet Union



between roughly 1935 and 1960.



** Korolyov: Sergei Pavlovich Korolyov (1907-1966), lead Soviet rocket engineer and designer



of the Sputnik and Vostok spacecraft in the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Space Race in the 1950s and 60s.