Ben Cooper

A Death Rattle, Too, Is Wet

-After "Padraic my Prince" by Bright Eyes


The water had gone     cold
by the time it left          your lungs, relieved
at last of their burden. The same          water that let her wash

her hands of guilt, her heart     of you. She left it all
for me. I saw the future once. You weren’t            in it. I couldn’t hear
the buzz of baby’s breath         over the whistling cicadas as they stir,

mate and leave the world         none the wiser, as if poisoning
themselves with the promise
of repopulation. There’s something in the static

of the TV screen, a thick drone             leaking through my empty
fingers. It reminds me of         the nonsense noise
spilling from the filling             tub. It reminds me

of a cicada        swimming in the selfish
sickness of the spinning           room. It reminds me,
you can’t see tears                    when you’re drowning.

Ben Cooper is a poet studying creative writing at Salisbury University. He is the winner of the 2025 AWP Intro Journals Award, works as a Managing Editor at 149 Review, and is published or forthcoming in Colorado Review, The Penn Review, The Shore, Atlanta Review, Saranac Review, Frontier Poetry, and more.