TREVOR KETNER
The Summer Every Street Flooded
Everywhere I ever
lived is flooding,
even the nocturnal desert
where, yes, I wandered,
an arrow tipped with want,
started walking till water
redrew its boundary—
expanse, apotheosis
thing to happening.
I never thought anything
I didn't only desire
could scare me so much.
The rain fell like hands
on the roofs of the city
and in the park like cinders
on the children, drunk
after a miracle: water
to vodka, getting high
on each other's breath and
how they all chanted at once,
relentless cultic
beat of the sacred
heart on ecstasy pressed
into the shape of a heart.
Trevor Ketner holds an MFA from the University of Minnesota. He has been or will be published in Best New Poets 2015, Day One, Ninth Letter, West Branch, Pleiades, The Offing, Lambda Literary, Devil's Lake, Adroit and elsewhere. His essays and reviews can be found in The Kenyon Review, Boston Review, The Rumpus, and The Collagist. He was a resident at the Vermont Studio Center, received the 2014 Gesell Award in Poetry, and is Associate Poetry Editor for Slice Magazine. (www.trevordaneketner.com)