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Rash by Viviana Abnur | One Poem Only
Episode 2929th May 2026 • One Poem Only • Maggie Devers
00:00:00 00:01:55

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One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise.

Rash

Viviana Abnur

Everything I know about death
I learned the hard way
when I saw you go by on the stretcher
to intensive therapy
I was an atheist like you and I only saw
a slight and strange body
pass at the speed of light
is it that perhaps we live confused
or we are just light and nothing else
because I suddenly knew in an instant
that you were not
in that body
they took you to the Emergency room
like a war trophy
there was a rush for the doctors to arrive
there was a rush to death
for fleeing the territory
minutes before
you asked for a book
minutes before I hugged you and you told me
you are so good
then the power outage in the hospital
the door half open
and I was spying on you and could see
how they surrounded you with candles
still alive
like in a Poe story
someone hugged me and I cried
we lost said the doctor
and I knew death
is in a rush dad
and in the rush it's sloppy
because something was taken forever
I knew it
but something not
in that defeated body
you were not in.

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