poem

 Pluto

Since Pluto is no longer a planet

I’m worried about the implications

For people like me who

May no longer cut it.

Too small, too cold, too distant,

An irregularity of orbit

That brings me back round again

Ever too unpredictably.

Upon further review I may lack

The qualifying criteria for human-ness.

Crossed off all the lists for the crime

Of being insufficiently luminous.

Just a frozen rock hurtling through space,

Always on the fringe of the consensus grace.

I may try to tack toward the Sun soon

But who knows if that will even be enough

Yes, you still have Mars you still have your Moon

But the Moon will never love you back.

9/6/21