Modern Day Sarcophagus

Today, I sent Dr. Frankenstein a sign
in the cloud columns rising from each suburban chimney.
The wisps were carried by a polar updraft
until my message was etched across the crisp winter blue,
saying: “Don’t worry, I’ve sewn my mouth shut,
wrapped myself in a name-brand shroud,
and rolled the stone in front of my tomb for you.”
As each spilled chemical slows my synapses,
my toes root into the depths and tether me to a hope
that he’ll revive me after a time, after
this cold industrial stagnation has passed
because the smokestacks, money rivers, and
streams of hate have become flash floods.
Perhaps, by some alchemy, the doctor
will raise me from seed to tree and allow me
to breathe a life into this world again, allow me
to add a wall of green to soak up each
political threat falling as acid rain.

A Soluble Tablet

heavy on the tongue dissolves
until gelatin gives way
to the taste of bitter roots,
then trails down my throat
in a chalk river destined
to take these clouds away
so I’ll finally glimpse the day.

As the sky spins beyond
my range of vision, a flock
of hummingbirds flutter,
carry me by my extremities
past the cloud deck where
the daybreak bursts and burns
away the pixelated gray.

Donny Winter is a LGBTQ+ poet, educator, and activist from Saginaw, Michigan. He currently teaches creative writing at Delta College, and his first full-length collection of poems, Carbon Footprint, was recently released by Alien Buddha Press. He also has poems in Flypaper Mag, Sonder Midwest, and Awakened Voices.