Sour

I see this poem as framed by a cocktail— and I wondered if that framing needs to be made stronger at the start.

“For my Irish father,” seems to represent a toast, a drink to him /his philosophy, that turns out very sour. The image needs to be stronger — I missed it for a long time. The line , “Egad! . . .” makes sense if the speaker is taking a first sip. I love, “Air and Space lockdown” as a metaphor for how universally choking the shutdown is, but in a literal sense, it’s more than “air and space.” i.e. military. I felt a broader additional image was needed.

The ermine is a great choice — an animal people generally don’t know much about. I was most interested in how the animal seems to be wearing a white tuxedo—or gown (since it’s female), and then has “hearing spy-sharp,” (a female Russian spy? it is also kind of cute) and is pregnant half the time, yet a killer. Then they are hunted and commodified; “prized like vodka,” is great, ties in to the cocktail theme, maybe could be even more specific (“prized like Stoli” or whatever is the name of the really elite stuff). (Also, maybe a subtle reference to the current “Russia” problem?) 
As you move to the ending, I love the phrase, “surfeit of sour”; and the image of you, my friend, with a bloody mouth is really chilling!

With this reading of the ermine section, I have come to feel that the father’s quoting Yeats may not be the best way to go. The ermine material is about a specific kind of downward spiral—destruction and profiteering, destructiveness of protiteering—but the Yeats is so majestic, it seems to go in another direction from your poem.

Great job taking on the really tough mission of the Gregerson poem!