Pluto

Don't feel small. We have all
been demoted. Go on being

moon or rock or orb, buoyant
and distant, smallest craft ball

at Vanevenhoven's Hardware
spray-painted purple or day-glow

orange for a child's elliptical vision
of fish line, cardboard and foam.

No spacecraft has touched you,
no flesh met the luster of your

heavenly body. Little cold one, blow
your horn. No matter what you are

planet, and something other than
planet, ancient but not "classical,"

the controversy over what to call you
light-hours from your ears. On Earth

we tend to nurture the diminutive,
root for the diminished. None

of your neighbors knows your name.
Nothing has changed. If Charon's

not your moon, who cares? She
remains your unmoved companion.

Copyright © 2009 Maggie Dietz All rights reserved
from Harvard Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission