Danaë in the After
by Rachel Roupp
Danaë in the After
She crawls in the corners all day, skirting
the edges of sunlight streaming
into her windows like rain, like gold,
like all that is unholy, like the god
who shapeshifted and never knew her name.
She sidesteps puddles of sunshine on her floor,
pulls curtains tight, rips wires out
from behind every socket, every switch,
leaving the light no way to get in.
While the other women she knows
lock their doors to the darkness,
she inverts, roams the night.
She drives to the coast on backroads,
no streetlights, no headlights.
When she gets to the sea, she runs
naked, bristles her back toward
the motherly moon’s clean, gray light.
White Sage
by Rachel Roupp
White Sage
My mother’s hair turned shock-white
during her second divorce.
Her hairdresser went to dye
her roots and gently asked,
do you know what’s happened?
Covering patches of gray was one thing,
discovering the bleached-bone
emptiness was something
wholly animal and unclean.
I knew it was because
of the almost ex-husband
who wouldn’t sign the papers or
just die, already. That was the summer
she stopped saying his name.
When she moved to the desert,
my mother quit coloring her hair.
She said she had no one to impress.
She let her tight curls grow upward,
branching like the sagebrush beneath
the window of her new bedroom.
Rachel Roupp
Rachel Roupp is a poet from the mountains of Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in Crab Fat Magazine, Chantwood Magazine, Komorebi Literary Magazine, Mind Murals, Persephone’s Daughters, and Rag Queen Periodical, where she serves as the Social Media Coordinator. Rachel is currently working on her MFA in Creative Writing at Chatham University. She just wants Dolly Parton to be proud of her.