Poetry 2025 Contest Winner

The website said don’t forget to bring a sweater. Kore asks, do I 

have to go. I remind her that the tour is only ninety minutes. No 

surprises. No pomegranates. She cheers up and takes my jacket, 

then my hand. We’re in a cage that shakes, then drops in the shaft, 

shuddering, to the 27^th level. The deepest part of the mine. Kore 

whispers, this isn’t bad, her face aging as the light greys. A spider 

builds a web in her throat. We’ve landed and are about to exit the cage. 

Reading from the stiff pamphlet, I tell her, “a government lab outside 

Chicago shoots off 30 trillion neutrinos every 2.5 seconds and they take 

just 2.5 milliseconds to get here in Soudan.” Isn’t that cool? I ask her. 

We’re going to see where they study dark matter. She stiffens a little 

as she steps off the lift and follows me into the darkness.