Death Rattle

By Frank X Walker
Nobody slept. We just lay there stretched out
on the floor like we did when we were kids,
all lined up like sardines in the same twin bed.
We couldn’t. Our ears were too full of the air

raid that followed the pronouncement of her
imminent death. But she bombed the small room
the whole night, the next day, and the next
refusing to relent, exhibiting the defiance
in a heart that was always the strongest thing about her.

There is no quiet now. Even miles away in the dark
searching for sleep on my own pillow I can still hear
her breathe. I can still see her body swell and jerk,
dragging me back, with a few of my siblings in tow,
praying for no more suffering    and safe passage,

waiting for the sound of her one last breath
—unable to separate it from our own.

Notes:

“Death Rattle” is reprinted from Love House (Accents Publishing, 2023) and is part of the folio “Frank X Walker: Kinfolk.” Read the rest of the folio in the January/February 2026 issue of Poetry.

Source: Poetry (January/February 2026)