botanical illustration of mandrake

A Quiet Root

We comb through hundreds of literary magazines to bring you one stellar poem or flash fiction piece every weekday.

“Fowl Play” by Karen Schauber

The boy sprouts haystack hair above Dobby ears. He leans into every bad decision a nine-year-old can make. A handful they say. On a day like any other, he sends Tanta Sofía’s precious kitten out on a makeshift boat cobbled together with popsicle sticks and Bazooka gum, towards the middle of the lake.

Read it in BarBar