POETRY October 14, 2011

To my parents before the divorce:

Brit Blalock

by Brit Blalock

I am thinking of the way
planets move, the banana-bend
of their orbits in blackness

and the precise spin
that keeps everything in
order. My Very Educated Mother

Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.
That’s how we learned
the hopscotch from innermost

to outermost orb. Except
now scientists have given Pluto
the boot, demoted its dimpled roundness

to the title of biggest rock
in some belt of other rocks.
My Very Educated Mother Just

Served Us Nein. Nothing.
They used the word reclassification
as if Pluto was just moving

to a new neighborhood or changing
departments at work, when really
they had revised the definition

of planet. Truth is, they took
the galaxy I knew and shook it
until the handle broke off.

Truth is,
Pluto must feel like shit.

Brit Blalock recently completed her MFA in poetry at New York University, but she is originally from Alabama. Brit's work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Blood Orange Review, Argos Books' Little Anthology, and Birmingham Weekly. She is currently completing a book-length collection called Floodlight, which is set in a small, Southern beach town.
Brit Blalock recently completed her MFA in poetry at New York University, but she is originally from Alabama. Brit’s work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Blood Orange Review, Argos Books’ Little Anthology, and Birmingham Weekly. She is currently completing a book-length collection called Floodlight, which is set in a small, Southern beach town.