Stone Circle Review

Alma Mater Omnium Vulpes

by Laila Amado

According to the book I’ll bring home from the library tomorrow, time is nothing but a rotating spiral. This is the year of the fox, the fifth of nine hundred cycles. Last summer, I stepped off the platform in a university town, and the train moved on, wheels chugging along the steel rails; my pockets juggled loose change and torn up paper, and I didn’t know how or why or whatever, and whatnot, and why shouldn’t I be a student of celestial mechanics, ancient philosophy, and the language of outdated machines? Up on the ceiling, in the auditorium where voices echo, where you said, “You cannot seriously think that the quantum entanglement in a curvature of spacetime is the way forward for our relationship to progress,” and I said, “Why the hell not?” and someone in the row behind us said shh, and the lecturer cleared his throat and continued as if nothing had happened, in that auditorium, up on the ceiling, unkindness of ravens spans the stars. Down in the town, clouds unravel on the spires built to uphold the fog and falling sky. Shadows stretch from campus to the river. Time hurries back across the quad. Fingers searching for the truth find lies, quips, quivers, candy wraps, and leeches in the mud. Dawn spills citron. College dorm rooms smell of fear and easy prey. I see a vixen in the mirror, bloodied feathers stuck to my lower lip.

Laila Amado is a nomadic writer of very short fiction and occasional poetry. Her works have appeared in Swamp Pink, HAD, the Deadlands, and elsewhere. In her writing-free time, she can be found staring at the sea. The sea, occasionally, stares back. Follow her on Bluesky @amadolaila.bsky.social and on Instagram @laila_amado.

The Editor2026-07-12T11:11:30-04:00July 12, 2026|

Book of Agenesis

by Valerie Tirado

Ask me where it hurts and I’ll sing
from the mouth of a dehiscent wound,
where God once thought it wise
to cleave flesh holy.
Only now, with palms pressed
against unsuturing skin,
do I recall the hour of her genesis
as if unfolding again
before me: the silverblade
nearing my flank; the piercing sharp
and flat notes of bonebreaking;
the fashioning of rib into chisel,
to etch her marrow from mine.
Only now, on the eve
of her wake, can I hear the crimson
chorus coursing from me—
Of all the ribs, why not take
from those in rungs above,
those soldered as one?
Why take from the pair
at the pit of a cage,
those ossified in exile
from their mirror halves?

Valerie Tirado is a Cuban-American writer from Miami, Florida. Her work has appeared in wildness, Bodega Magazine, and The McNeese Review’s Boudin. She currently lives in New York City, where she works in translational cancer research.

The Editor2026-07-11T11:51:43-04:00July 11, 2026|

Conditions

by Jan Hassmann

An autumn toll from Mum, in tears.
Dad’s got another thing.

You’d think past years of gleaning
and three kids in the arts,
a man can let down sleeves
and guard.

But only seasons ripen without toil,
and bitter soil feeds only prudence.

Dragging droughts drink deeper draughts!
is what dads say,
and a father’s wisdom never falters.

The rain barrel is full,
and the wasps are thriving,
feasting on the lustrous wine.

Jan Hassmann toils in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. His words have appeared in HAD, Maudlin House, BULL, Revolution John, Blood & Honey and elsewhere. He’s on X: @ItsJanHassmann.

The Editor2026-07-05T10:43:57-04:00July 5, 2026|

Asterixis

by R.C. Blenis

The liver thinks yellow thoughts.
Ask anyone in hepatic failure—
blood becomes philosophy,
ammonia scales the brain
until Tuesday tastes purple,
until yesterday wakes tomorrow.
The body keeps calendars.
My hands knew first: flutter
to tremor, morse code tapping
against the porcelain sink;
my mouth on mute, fingers
spelling. Even severed:
phantom hands still sign
in air, in ache.

R.C. Blenis is a nurse and educator writing from Atlanta. His poetry and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in The Massachusetts Review, JAMA, River Teeth, Fourth Genre, and West Trade Review, among others. More at rcblenis.com and @hillbillypilgrim.

The Editor2026-07-04T10:30:34-04:00July 4, 2026|

Don Simms Has a Message for You

by Darren Morris

My father, yet alive but without purpose,
loosens his mind like a botched windsor
or the rope of a dinghy on a lake at night.

The Boomers conspire to lose their sanity.
Nearing death, angels pepper his half-sleep
with air defense. His bombs dropped long ago.

Without throwing ourselves over their coffins,
couldn’t we still rise to the occasion of loss?
Or had we inherited their stark indifference?

Don Simms, my little league football coach,
would have something to say at this point.
He would whack you sharply on your helmet.

He would say, Listen up. Cut the crap. Stop
fucking around, dipshits. You are blowing it.
You ain’t doin’ yer job. So pay attention.

Distraction was the largest threat back then.
Not ability or lack thereof. We were small.
One kid was as talentless as the next.

Some were more sluggish. Some were
afraid of violence. Some had weak chins.
If we got hurt during the game

we were told to lie still so the ref
could stop play, and they could get to us.
The following Saturday, I got hurt

so lay there looking up at nothingness
the way I did when I played the baby Jesus
in the manger on Christmas Eve at church.

The whole game stopped for me and I felt
holy and wept a little at my holiness.
It was maybe the first time I remember

leaving my body and looking down on it.
The men finally got to me. My facemask framed
their heads in an iconostasis: Coach Simms

filled my left eye, the team doctor in my right.
What’sa matter? Asked Coach. I held up
one hand with my blessed finger trembling,

unbroken, and told them someone stepped
on it. At which point, the doc arose and Coach
told me to Get the fuck up. You ain’t hurt.

And then he cracked me sharply on my helmet
and down I came back into my body and walked
alone, not carried aloft, off the field. I was six.

Fifty years hence, my father is busy chasing fake
sex partner profiles online, in his dark, labyrinthine
archive of fantasy. It muddies his relationship

with reality. It takes his money. It infects devices.
Which he calls me now in a froth of despair, only
to offer some fix. Fretting, not over unpaid taxes

not over the destination or station of the soul,
but for the perplex of technology he does not need.
I need Don Simms to interrupt. I need Coach with

clipboard in hand, to slap my father hard
and snap him out of it. I need Coach Simms
to say, Listen up. Cut the crap, you baby.

Everybody cries now and then. But you
ain’t worth your salt, not compared to those
bastards that weep over what was lost.

Darren Morris is a writer living in Richmond, Virginia. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the Virginia Commission for the Arts. His work appears in the current issues of The Yale Review and Willow Springs Magazine. His poems are forthcoming at the American Poetry Review.

The Editor2026-06-28T10:29:20-04:00June 28, 2026|