[Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long] glutton eats the marrow—to huge, to hush (softer, ghostlike)—thaw thigh hotly—camp: festive heat or wondrous seethe—oh nymphs (sly tufts) / tongs (brass, length to pluck)—night reined joy, bedsweat, the deer—gut me (transfigural sternum)—red of embers tempts neon lust—in yielding i tend—amethyst teeth sheath—astrology: a moving glyph—tans deerskin (blunt death)— eyes fur / velvety mess—sorcery is smut / a ewe hewn (reverent meat)—hair (ivy), ankle (fig)— a fist, a bee, a cry, no, a deity (needlework hysteria)—piss vase—dimmed seep of taffeta—rim me velvet—hag sees my waistline (hid pecs / dry cove)—hankies: knot the soft runes.
[O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends] turn small, amethyst hand—we toe a bush (freeday nudity / theycunt gobletfroth)— tend (body haunts botany)—devour hem / pelt— hounds eat hindgod in forest—i too tide, warm, womanlike—yeast, honey, salt shut up in flowersex, its odor—oh i round / cult / hutch rabbitly—eye phony lunate cutout—sat in dirt—fist extreme sub—bent vibes— cub bush (nude, asleep)—the water bodies—i omen / echo—soon i sit—textures (fleece, linen, mud, velum)—godlike i meat at bitch, homo, fag—i set a taboo (deep bend)—oyster wood soft—i he the me (he-tunic chafe)— hem hole—swan meet swag—he shone moonsick.
From the Author: 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 The Wild Hunt Divinations: A Grimoire (Wesleyan University Press, 2023) and [WHITE] (UGA 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, Poetry Daily, Brooklyn Rail, New England Review, Ninth Letter, Changes, Diagram, Foglifter, and elsewhere. They have received fellowships from Lambda Literary, Poets House, and The Poetry Project. They hold an MFA from the University of Minnesota.
