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Tunguska -- poetry by Francis Luo

On July 28th, 2023, Radiolab aired an episode called “Little Black Holes Everywhere,” proposing that the 1908 Tunguska event may have been caused by an impact from a primordial black hole.


The classrooms have filled again,

gossip twisted around chair legs,

halls full again of bodies

in which we try to build a mind


the black holes have been there this whole time

devouring stars and planets and who knows what else

The bullied and the lonely, each

gravitating to different corners,

heads down, phones out, how

could they be saved


it flattened eight hundred square kilometers

glass shattered in the shockwave


Because everyone wants or needs

to shine, TikToks and perfect pictures

posted, portrait mode, by which I mean

the cheap unlasting halo of acceptance


black holes have friends in the form of stars

and grab little bits and pieces of them


Little gift trinkets left trampled,

and the gum beneath the desks,

sticky in a way only the guilt

of the conscientious can be


since it was so rural, only three people died

no crater could be found



 

Francis Luo is a student writer from the San Francisco Bay Area. When he is not writing, he is often consuming an eclectic range of music or composing his own.


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