Pluto

Martin Zarrop

Gravity is a silent bully.
With enough mass, he
could clear a feeding zone,
muscle his way through

but it’s rough out in the belt.
Dynamical dominance -
who’d heard of it out here?
Now astronomers measure it

justify his banishment
to the celestial toilets,
as he seethes with rage
at this invasion of privacy.

Yes, it’s rough out in the belt.
Stripped of his rank
he slinks back to oblivion,
a dwarf in the rubble.

The Science

This poem is inspired by the contentious demotion in 2006 of Pluto to the status of dwarf planet based on the concept of dynamical dominance, a measure of its ability to gravitationally dominate other objects in its orbit. Pluto shares its orbit with many Kuiper Belt objects of comparable size and is not massive enough to ‘clear the neighbourhood’.  

The Poet

Martin Zarrop is a mathematician who wanted certainty but found life more interesting and fulfilling by not getting it. He has published three pamphlets No Theory of Everything (Cinnamon 2015), Making Waves (V.Press 2019) and To Boldly Go (V.Press 2021) and two collections Moving Pictures (Cinnamon 2016) and Is Anyone There? (High Window Press 2020).

Next poem: Problem 2d: Analysis on leaving by Allison Lindquist