‘Incubus’ by Debra Rymer

Incubus

You have spread from one single drop
of night sky into the shadow map
furrowing and complicating every
smooth anonymity.  Take a breath
and we’re three dimensional!   My
Shadow has revealed the ghost
of the page ripped out.  We are
words discarded as much as we are
words said.  Shadow lover even day
drenched you play at the hollows
between my bones, until night
releases you to roam or rest.  You might
have draped over palaces or cathedrals
but every gloaming you fill my little
room and soothe against my ear
it’s all still there even
when you close your eyes.



Debra Rymer is a public school teacher in New York City. She has loved reading and writing poetry for over 50 years, but is only recently submitting poems for publication. These are poems from a place of raw sobriety. This is a voice fired to glass.