Science  Write  Now

Where lies Enos (Hebrew for Man)?

 

                        Not mouldering beside

            the deboned body-glove of

            HAM’s formless flesh

 

            underneath a New 

            Mexico museum’s 

            carpark flagpole

 

                        nor laid out 

            in the airforce 

            pathology lab’s 

            specimen drawers

 

            that house the same’s beetle-

            scrubbed bones.

 

When half-hearted dissectors

            were done with Enos

            first chimpanzee 

            to gain true orbit

 

            (third 

            hominid 

            after two 

            cosmonauts)

 

            their flayed pilot 

            bloomed 

            in flame

                        not on thrilling 

            re-entry but in

            medical incinerator.

 

Nothing of him remains.

                        No brass plaque 

            or ash-scattered 

            park claims 

            space for Enos

                        (Hebrew for Man).

Airplane Baby Banana Blanket interprets the bizarre true story of Lucy, a chimpanzee raised as the ‘daughter’ of Oklahoma psychotherapist Dr Maurice Temerlin during the 1960s and 70s.

‘Space Chimps I’, ‘Space Chimps II’ and ‘Space Chimps III’ signpost the close of each of the book’s three sections. They tell the story of two other chimps — HAM and Enos, unwilling participant’s in NASA’s Mercury Program.