The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: In the Cosmic Fugue by Jocelyn Heath

This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from In the Cosmic Fugue by Jocelyn Heath (Kelsay Books 2022).

Jupiter, Unyielding

Lunar muscles round out his arm,
his chest: god of the planet, whose
purple robe trails in stardust
on this glossed page—
my finger edging a thigh
that glides upward to what

I am told I should want.
Turn the page:
moons in a ragged waltz.
In close orbit, Ganymede,
his plump ice-cheeks
blushed with storm-red

rage at being taken—
as the boy of myth caught in air
and caged in lustful talons
to serve his red-eyed master.
Pushed to his knees.
Voice stopped up

by the god’s thickness, knowledge
pouring down his throat.
The tenderness after—
I don’t understand how
he can embrace the desire
that took him by force.

Jocelyn Heath is an Associate Professor in English at Norfolk State University. Her first poetry collection, In the Cosmic Fugue, came out in November 2022. Other creative writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Crab Orchard Review, Poet Lore, Sinister Wisdom, Flyway, and Fourth River. She is an Assistant Editor for Smartish Pace.

Layla Lenhardt (she/they) is an American poet. She is founder and Editor-in-Chief of the (currently on hiatus) national literary journal 1932 Quarterly. Her essays, poems, short prose, and interviews have been published across various types of media, including a pickle jar, a post card, and a bathroom stall in Dublin. She is a 2021 Best of the Net Nominee and was a judge for Poetry Super Highway’s Annual Contest in 2022. Her first full-length poetry collection, Mother Tongue, was published by Main Street Rag Publications (2023). She is a 2022 alumna of the SAFTA residency.