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.