If any planet had possibilities, it was you
with your wobbly, erratic orbit. An outsider,
but still in. Why did we abandon you
to spin on the brim of our solar system?
Outcast among the riff-raff pulled by gravity
and dark matter, now nobody’s son.
They tell us you’re a dime-a-dozen ice ball
that should never have been given the high status of planet.
I understand their point: if you’re a planet
then we have to accept every dork, every lopsided meteor,
the uncharted, the borderline cases. The neat elliptical paths
of our exclusive cosmic neighborhood
would morph into a chaotic web.
Science demands elegance, but you gave me hope
that even the glum and unspectacular
might join the club. I worry about you, orphaned
and shunned, taking your slow 248 years
to orbit the sun, shuffled onto the crowded Kuiper Belt
with its masses of asteroids and space junk.
Already disappeared from texts and diagrams,
who will care for you? Who will remember?
