by Luanne Castle

          after Robert Frost’s poetic landscape
           and “Chicken Little”

The marbled sky cracked further,
and rain pelted the earth.
From the barn, they saw lights flickering
in the house through the gray slurry.
“Can’t get back to the house now.”
Josiah jabbed the straw with his pitchfork.
“Cotton’s gonna get waterlogged
if this doesn’t blow over. Then we’re done.”
Mary kept her eye on the house, listening
for the baby. “You’re Henny Penny
with your bad news. Sophia’s alone!”
She zipped her jacket and trudged
into the storm. Josiah watched
until her silhouette moved through
the lit-up window. He speared more straw,
then heard her scream. The pitchfork flew.

---

About the Author:

Luanne Castle’s poetry and prose have appeared in Copper Nickel, River Teeth, Your Impossible Voice, JMWW, Grist, Fourteen Hills, Verse Daily, Disappointed Housewife, Lunch Ticket, Saranac Review, Pleiades, Cleaver, Anti-Heroin Chic, Bending Genres, BULL, The Mackinaw, The Ekphrastic Review, Phoebe, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Gone Lawn, Burningword, Superstition Review, One Art, Roi Fainéant, Dribble Drabble, Flash Boulevard, O:JA&L, Sheila-Na-Gig, Thimble, Antigonish Review, Longridge, Paragraph Planet, Six Sentences, Gooseberry Pie, Switch, and Ginosko. She has published four award-winning poetry collections. Her hybrid flash memoir, Scrap: Salvaging a Family, is forthcoming from ELJ Editions in 2026.