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Pluto

Don't feel small. We all have

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 unmoved, your companion.

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