by Aleksandra Jovičić Đinović (translated from Serbian by Kruna Petrić)
the vines awaken
to greet the ripening day
the sun climbs to its zenith
scattering darkness from every corner
you fold your sorrowing hands
across your belly
only yesterday
there was a heartbeat
your weary body tightens
under the blaze of light
yet your soul
remains untouched by its ray
Aleksandra Jovičić Đinović (b. 1986, Priština) writes poetry, short stories, and essays, with work published in domestic, regional, and international journals. She received the Mak Dizdar Award for Best Unpublished Poetry Collection (2017), after which her first book, Wanderings, was published in 2018 at the Slovo Gorčina festival. Her second poetry collection, Our Little Deaths, appeared in 2020, and her third, Thirties Are Not What We Imagined, won the Milutin Bojić Award in 2021. Her fourth poetry collection, Until I Become Bone, includes the poem she is submitting.