Urban legend says: You can tell which Aunts
are real Hungry Ghosts since they wait for you
after school to walk you home. Such romance,
if that’s the term, boggled me. All I knew
was that her garage smelled of hootch, roach spray
and sage. Sometimes her husband would come home
and shout. She was a Ghost because one day
she was gone. All that summer I would roam
near by, to lure her out with the promise
of boy flesh but such flesh is everywhere.
Urban legend says: the sick kids she takes
become Ghosts themselves: Eros’ virus …
which is why I’ll starve, I answer in prayer,
rather than bequeath you plagues that ache.
