I imagine that Pluto
never stops making a case
for itself, spunky little
brother to the gas giants,
considered a tag-along,
given to coldness, prone to
getting lost in the night sky,
forever up to no good
with its largest moon, Charon,
shadowy partner in crime.
Sure, in all but the largest
telescopes, it’s no brighter
than a star. But looking up
into the darkness, I think
of the arguments spinning
on the axis of its mind,
how they must be magnified
by all that time on its hands,
two-hundred-forty-eight Earth
years spent orbiting the Sun.
But a trivial dispute
about how to classify
a celestial body
has sobered the child, forcing
it to feel the pull of light
from its heart, like a Black Hole,
which tells it day after day
you’ll never be good enough.
Sometimes it runs faster than
Neptune. It’s shielded itself
with icy white peaks not made
of snow. Once thought the jewel
of the Kuiper Belt, Pluto
a sibling of loneliness,
whirling on a path toward
obscurity, years of hope
trailing behind like the tail
of its shiny-nosed namesake
everyone will always love.
— from Juniper Volume 7, Issue 3