Does "but" make sense here?

Question

"With body soaked

In water, but

He dries it off."

Does the "but" makes sense in its placement in the text above?

Answer 1

The use of the word but in this sentence allows you to remove the comma after the word water. If you remove the word but from the sentence, you would need a comma after the word water.

Answer 2

This appears to be from a poem and is not a complete sentence...

So, I don't have enough context to say if it makes sense. The comma is ok, but, (see what I did there), It would be better on the next line and without a comma. You would need to consider the form of the whole poem to see if this structure is parallel. Do you use commas like this in other parts of the poem? If not, I would take out the comma and put "but" on the next line.

The emphasis here in this short phrase seems to be that he eventually was dry- like the water did not have a meaningful impact after all. If you are trying to emphasize something else, eliminate the "with" at the beginning and work from that transition between the previous idea and this one.