Symptoms of Ghosts
Aldo Amparán
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“The main reason behind the gay orientation of some
men is that they are possessed by female ghosts.”
— Spiritual Science Research Foundation
A murmur
in my right wrist
tells me there’s something wrong
with the light, & the sound
of a finger snap
wakes my lover
every morning
at 3:46. Sometimes I speak
perfect English & know
it’s not my own voice.
Age 12, I kissed
my first man
in my sleep: the chapped lips
of a boy
from my secundaria
searching inside me
for what? I woke up
levitating
over the wet mattress.
My desire ignited sudden
little fires
& the little fires so many
questions. In a church,
far from home,
I asked a priest
what was wrong
with my heart.
My yellowed heart
a glitter bomb. My heart acid
wash. My penitence
a prayer I keep
unlearning
to become proud
of this desire.
I used to write
my colors in past
tense: I was redded.
I was blued. I was
violented. Often
misspelled
certain truths.
I was 12
& kept asking why
until the world said it:
I lacked a father
figure. I’d been touched
inappropriately by a man.
So, it must be true
what the world now says:
my desire: not my own,
but the woman
singing in my breastbone.
My lover awakens
to her song. He listens
to that disem-
bodied music in my body
& as he leans
in to taste
the bitterness of daylight
in my gums
I’m grateful
for our ghosts
replaying their soft
ballad at the back
of our throats.
AUDIO
Listen to Aldo Amparán read “Symptoms of Ghosts.”
About this poem: A few years ago, I stumbled upon an article in LGBTQ Nation titled “85% of gay people are possessed by ghosts according to ‘spiritual research.’” As a queer person & avid consumer of all things strange & spooky, I was amused by the claim, but it lingered with me in a more introspective way. It reminded me of all the damaging refrains used to explain someone’s queerness, & how some of them were true for me: experiencing childhood trauma, growing up without a father. The poem reflects the unsettling feeling of recognizing yourself in the very narratives meant to erase or pathologize you, but it also holds, within that tension, the quiet, ongoing effort to reclaim the self from all of it.
This poem was selected as the runner-up of the Shō Poetry Prize for Shō No. 7.
Read about the Shō Poetry Prize here, or view past recipients and honorees.
Aldo Amparán is the author of Brother Sleep, winner of the Alice James Award & finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, & The House Has Teeth, forthcoming from Alice James Books in 2026. They have received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts & CantoMundo. Amparán’s work has appeared in POETRY, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, The Georgia Review, New England Review, AGNI, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, & elsewhere.
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