Stone Circle Review

Bite of Mordant

by Ann Chinnis

After Louise Glück’s “Wild Iris”

Although it was my mother’s
favorite flower, bursting

purple, I never was an iris.
My yard explodes with them,

short blooming period
from May to June.

I discharged
a young mother from the ER.

She returned the next day
and died. Brittled by failure,

I moved to an island. After a year,
like Glück’s wild iris, I made

a passage home from another world:
oblivion.

Unlike her iris, no great fountain,
no deep blue shadows. Lonely

rhizome. Papered skin. Hungry
for the water’s boil, the wringing, my

purple begged the pot for mordant’s
bite, repose of fiber.

Ann Chinnis is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, 2025 and the author of three poetry books: Poppet, My Poppet, I Can Catch Anything, and Love Song: Port & Starboard. Her work has been published in Sky Island Journal, River Heron Review, Gyroscope, Crab Creek Review, among others. She is a retired Emergency Physician and a leadership coach and lives with her wife in Virginia Beach, Virginia. You can find her on Instagram @achinnis. Her website is annchinnispoet.com.

The Editor2026-08-02T10:20:32-04:00August 2, 2026|

The Reckoning of Trees

by Dolo Diaz

Growing up, cylindrical corpses stacked in fathers’ truck, a massive machine with M.A.N. decal’d in front, and father, all five feet—perched in the driver’s seat headed for the sawmill. The ones around us, apple, lemon, peach, trees kept for fruit, dogs for hunting, cats for mice. Forests kept at bay by grassy fields, like shorelines holding back the ocean. Forests the mighty home of wolves that could swallow whole small girls in red capes and helpless grandmothers. Trees of the forest never became pets. And now I live under towering redwoods in my backyard. Colossal Monterey pines that sway and hiss with the faintest wind, thirsty for currents. Drinkers of fog, spitting it back like bullets. In the dead of night, like the moon shadow of God, waiting. Perfectly still. We are theirs.

Dolo Diaz is a scientist/poet with roots in Spain, currently residing in California. Her work has appeared in ONE ART, The Summerset Review, Centaur, The Indianapolis Review, 2River View, among others. Her website is dolodiaz.com.

The Editor2026-08-01T08:24:51-04:00August 1, 2026|

Unable, until the end

by Jonathan Grimwood

The old gods come by,
sullen or joyful according
to instinct. A few,
near silent shadows
now.

Goldenrod, dog rose,
pearlwort, seapink

Horns worn lightly;
thorns, less
so.

Some fashions don’t change,
it seems.

The skull of a fox
for an orb, an antler,
as sceptre.

They are sad not to find you; not
even your echo off
a broken wall.

They thought you undying
like them; you, who knew
them so well.

They’d decided you must be
the same, with your coming
and going.

A little ragged, a little
smart, a little held
between
worlds.

Unable, until the end,
to decide in which if any,
you belong

Jonathan Grimwood is a Maltese born novelist and poet, who grew up in the Far East and Scandinavia. He lives in Edinburgh, with his partner Sam Baker, and an opiate addicted street cat. He has written for a number of national newspapers. He is on Insta as joncourtenaygrimwood and Bluesky as @joncg.bsky.social.

The Editor2026-07-26T10:29:38-04:00July 26, 2026|

Carcinization

by Caridad Cole

Recently I learned that everything becomes
a crab or a tree and I want to feel
my bones, stiff, my skin, rough,
dry, sharp, and one hundred years old
because most nights I think about being
somewhere else
where the green grass looks so smooth
I wouldn’t even have to lift a foot
to glide right over to the other side
and see evolution get to me
the way I know it always does

Caridad Cole is a second-generation writer and filmmaker from the backwoods of New Jersey. Her Pushcart-nominated work has been published by The Poetry Lighthouse, EastOver Press, Coffin Bell Journal, and elsewhere. She currently lives in Los Angeles, where she edits Moonday Mag and Chainmail Poetry. Other projects can be found at caridadcole.com or @astrocari on Instagram.

The Editor2026-07-25T10:31:18-04:00July 25, 2026|

Angry at the Last Days of August—

by Susan Barry-Schulz

the way they slid without sound
from the edge of the calendar—blanksquared days, blurred and flurried
on the hardwood floor.Angry at the early-changed trees—each
deepening hue, each crumpledcurl, each brittle brown star leaving
me felled and further from hislast smile, last text, last breath.
Don’t at least me or better placeme. I am clock-stopped. Buckled
and changed. Don’t try to auroraborealis me. Don’t hunter moon
or comet me. I dig my heels deepinto the high heat of September,
refuse these frosted blades of grass,these ever-changing constellations.
Deny slick piles of pine needlesrolling under my feet, fat acorns
at the curb, the V of geese retreatinghigh above the empty tennis courts—
shouting your name a thousandtimes into the swiftly darkening sky.
A pin drop in lieu of a reply.

Susan Barry-Schulz is a first generation Estonian-American poet and visual artist who grew up just outside of Buffalo, NY. She practiced as a physical therapist for many years before becoming disabled by chronic illness in 2020. Her work has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes and Best of the Net awards and has appeared in The Westchester Review, Rust & Moth, SoFLoPoJO, and in many other print and online journals and anthologies.

The Editor2026-07-19T10:32:25-04:00July 19, 2026|