[Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy ‘Will,’]*
oh hart with holly, with severe thawhush
loll—lewd vibration / pulsation (down
there)—all homotaunt, thightie vexes
it—hesitantly woodsmanlike (gut width,
urinal heswag)—sea is wooldull—i top switch—
i etch hillsoft doe in coin—unwoven, my heat
hum lessens—woollier staggirl hair itch—
pendant (in a cairn)—feels womanly, is chic
(tie eerie veil)—trans, a hart calls sweetly—
union (drenched, stoned)—data as habit
(gather, stow)—i hunt hindcowl / lily libido—
working metal ore into wheel—mollify male,
its neon flicker (lean, brushlike, done)—
alone, i thaw, melt, unlink handbone, tilt.
[If thy soul cheque thee that I come so near,]
quietly cute themache—horse hoof is neat
width / turn—sea thaws hollowly, a bit silty
and shallow—i work nude thistle, tidy stem—
sweet fat, fur, velum—lily hoists off velour
suit / her wetly full hall—wolf, violet, fire
swallowed (awful, tinny film)—i lilt hilly,
peg raw with vers perfection—i hinge to tease—
neon omen: an ermine sang buckodor
to nimble the plumhunt—neaten dress—
butch hysterics (not too tough)—i am unseen /
stareflooded—the smooth hip / long he-line—
teeth (stamen) teeth—the moon’s hot weightgain—
am a velvet bull (its dank, loamy tone)—the myth
wove transly, hummed hill to intense foam.
[In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,]
i home teeth naively—the infinite woods
house the tan doe—ornate horns terrify
/ devastate him to stay—they brush white pelts
dissatisfied—hole devotion (we weep)—top
ghosts me on grindr—i wet—i he—unnatural eyeteeth
perforate linen sheets—bone (gruntcooed
in restroom, nervebodied as nettleslit)—
i (seen as fleshy whole)—to taunt a neat
curve—my sensitive fawn moss—feint by
shading—is horse hair fur—feed tote love’s omen
(thin, ode volume)—skew halfway (a saneness
destroys, heaved)—a hart vow—lapels (butch / trans)—
lush, gay malfunction—i may gut no prey—
i tame weak hands, manmeat, thirstshapes.
*A Note on the Construction of the Text
These poems, what I call “divinations,” were created with the assistance of an online anagramming tool and the source text of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets. The first line of the corresponding Shakespearean sonnet is borrowed as the title for each divination. The rule I set was to anagram line-by-line, so each line of the divination has all the same letters as the corresponding line in the Shakespearean sonnet.
Trevor Ketner is the author of [WHITE] (University of Georgia Press, 2021) selected as a winner of the National Poetry Series by Forrest Gander. They have been published in The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, Brooklyn Rail, New England Review, Ninth Letter, Diagram, Foglifter, and elsewhere. A 2020 Lambda Literary Fellow, they have been a Poets House Emerging Poets Fellow, Emerge-Surface-Be Fellow for The Poetry Project, and a Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts Fellow. They hold an MFA from the University of Minnesota and live in Manhattan with their husband.