WEBVTT

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This is called "Succubus."

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And it's a-- so there are two
spirits, male and female ones,

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a succubus and one's an incubus.

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I think, it's succubus
that is the female that

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will come in the middle of the
night and make love to you.

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And if you get pregnant,
and if you're a woman,

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and you're pregnant
in the old country,

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and you wanted to get away
with it, you would say,

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they would say, an
incubus and a succubus.

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Incubus came in the middle
of the night, and nothing

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to do with the fellow
down the street.

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"This is not very long
poem, but it's a narrative.

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She woke and was startled to
see it on the sheets next to me

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as I slept, in the
dimmish little gray light

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from the window, a
mouth, inert, also gray,

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also sleeping, or dead?

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Instead of screaming,
there's a mouse in the bed,

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she rose in her
nudity and walked

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to the kitchen, the
drawer of knives,

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and returned, and hovered over
the bed, raised the knife,

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and stopped, and
thought, and thought.

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Then, yeah, poked
it with the knife.

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It gave in to her touch but did
not move, didn't even quiver.

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So it must surely be dead.

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Then thought to wake
me, but the slight smile

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passing over my face
indicating, maybe, I

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was having a nice dream.

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So what to do?

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What to do?

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Then it jerked, just a little,
gray on the white sheet.

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And she jumped back into
herself, she would say later.

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"Turned on the
lamp, and there it

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was, between the pillow
and the blanket, my wrist."

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She poked me, "Wake up honey.

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I was going to kill you."

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[LAUGHS]

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And I opened my eyes
to a naked woman,

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gray as the statue
of a beast we once

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saw jutting out from the back
wall of a cemetery on the verge

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of a vast Polish forest.

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And then, my wife's upraised
hand, a carving knife,

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and on her face, that
look I suddenly recognized

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and had thought I understood."

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