Read the winning piece of our 2025 Nonfiction Contest “Through the Mirror” by Jessie Cato selected by Lucy Ives.

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Autumn 1993 • Vol. XV No. 4 • Science, Science Fiction and Poetry |

Allegory

Outside somewhere, beneath an atmosphere
So pure and new each breath is musical
And silent, mouth-watering without taste,
So full of butterflies one can’t imagine
Because it hurts to be so free, out there

There was a hospital where AIDS was cured
With chinese cucumbers and royal jelly,
With herbal medicines, vaccines, colostrum.
I went there in a submarine, through space
It seemed, and I was armed with nuclear

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