If You’re Staying, I’ll Stay Too

Maybe it’s easier, having been named
            after someone: nobody
expects that you’ll rule the underworld
            or judge the dead, but
they call you Pluto anyway. Planet, too.
            I know a girl like you
who used to be a thing she isn’t anymore
            but hasn’t changed at all.
Whose orbit didn’t circle straight—whose
            size & distance never quite
seemed right—but no one cared til now.
            I was a woman once:
rounded by my own gravity, cat-called
            into hades by men who
could not see this gem of a hard rock
            was not made magnetic
for the likes of them. Hey little mama—
            don’t take it so hard.
So we are frigid. So we stay relegated
            out here with our kin.
I’ll wear my fade tight & my tie loose
            if you play your radio loud.
They say we’re known only in comparison
            to that which surrounds
us, so I’d guess they’ll hear our signal soon.
            I was a woman once,
but that’s not the farthest thing from the sun
            another universe might’ve
let me be: another universe might’ve let us be.