You wrote to me from Chicago, in summer,
telling me you were starting over.
You told me you were giving the baby up for adoption,
that you were too young, and it too precious.

You wrote to me of late 20th century dreams,
of hope not yet brittle and streets far
from our muted suburbia
(no dreams grew here among the rusted factories and dry earth).

The intervening years have bred silence.
The browning pages of your old letters utter nothing,
the curl in the pages betraying no more of your secrets.
Twenty-five years on I wonder about you and your baby,

of regrets and laughter plaited by lost time.

Copyright ©2021 Julio Angel Ortiz