Before her liftoff, Russian hands 

chained the Moscow stray

within her cone-shaped coffin.

In Cold War galore,

newspapers swapped 

between Sputpup & Woofnik

but we must shackle the puns

when the Control Room

sent a husky-terrier mix 

to a barking incineration.

Seething calls overheated 

the BBC switchboard: a Joan of Arc 

burned up in the mesosphere, the chain

still locked to her forepaw.