Samanta Daničić
Samanta is a recent high school graduate. Lives in a small town in a small country and spends her days drafting her CV and yearning for bigger and better things. She loves gut-wrenching beauty, alliteration, politics, and a good pun. She writes poetry as an exorcism: a preventive measure against autocannibalism.
The following work is Copyright © 2022, and owned by Samanta Daničić and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Sunbather
so we swam
in the muddy river for the kids
braver than i am and
my friends’ voices were a staccato
soaked in ragtime mischief
with their keen magpie eyes
for anything that glistens
and right there
enraptured by The Sun
i had a vision
of my warm blood
in the sand how it would
sizzle and crack
on impact and
soak and soften the grains
someone else would later stand in
i thought
i could be that
something mushy & sweet
like the meat
of red-hot cherries
left out
on scorching concrete
or soft vanilla ice cream
melting slowly
in your teeth
i thought
yes! i could be those things!
i smiled
my friends laughed like church bells
i could hear them
flittering to and fro
comparing pebbles and stones
i kept my eyes closed
i was warm and in my soul
a strange tremor took hold
it spoke:
my sweet Summer Sun
i have washed ashore
can i be your
hummingbird dynamo?
my sweetpea, my sequoia tree
can i be your
little tangerine?
my magnificent maverick
lean down and kiss me
on my pale cheek
color me orange
please
i’m yours to peel
whenever you want
Grant Vecera
Grant Vecera teaches writing and inquiry at Indiana University Indianapolis and at Butler University. His poems have been regularly appearing in various illustrious literary periodicals for the past thirty years. He prefers bicycles to automobiles, sandwiches to guns, and cats to people (except for his wife and daughter).
The following work is Copyright © 2022, and owned by Grant Vecera and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Burning Money
Wad them up, one at a time,
or tear them into confetti.
The more surface area the better.
After gathering dry twigs—
two fistfuls, as long and thin
as raw spaghetti—
jam their heads together
to make the inverted V
which starts your teepee.
The money is the heart,
the kindling, the sacred
conception
upon which all else ignites.
Leaving one side open,
add bigger sticks, encircled
with a layer of bigger ones.
Now, don’t light the edges
or the top. Go low.
Go for the eye.
