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.