´óÏó´«Ã½

I
In her model of the solar system
My seven-year-old
cosmologist
Ties to a barbecue skewer
With fuse wire the planets, buttons:
For Venus an ivory button,
Mercury silver beside the sun,
Mother-of-pearl for Jupiter,
Red and green for Mars and Earth,
For Saturn’s rings a pipe-
cleaner,
So that in the outer darkness
Close to the kitchen her brown eyes
Represent Uranus, Neptune.

II
Amelia, you didn’t include Pluto
In your wire sculpture of the solar system:
Tiny and very far away, an ice
World of ice mountains and methane snow,
A dance of five moons unlit by the sun,
The god of the afterlife’s kingdom
–
We shall go there when we die, dear child.