Ghost town

Many say

this is a ghost town.
In winter, 

when the wind alone

steals what little warmth
the body creates,
unlived dreams
cross the streets like specters,
chilling my back.

Sometimes one of these dreams,
that hasn’t yet given up the ghost,
grabs me
and dances with me.

The dance seems to last forever.
They appear dressed like gentlemen—
but then they whisper in my ear,
confessing they’re the washed up 

survivors of the boom.

Some didn’t even die in Pozos.
They fled to the capital
or anywhere else
to escape this place
with their pockets empty.

They left with the only thing they knew:
how to dig.
Just like that, they vanished
into the bright streets of the city.

Others will tell you
they drowned in the mines,
or died in explosions,
or were poisoned by mercury,
whose tears left silvery tracks 

forever running down 

their pale cheeks.

These aspirations,
and their ghosts,
still circle through this place
like the wind rustling in the pepper trees.

Only the dogs
know how to navigate
these cobbled streets.
Only they know how to keep watch
over the entrance to the underworld—
to protect those above,
and those below.

—Lorena Wolfman (2018, translation 2025)