Rajnish Mishra’s most recent poem to appear here was “I don’t go out” (March 2018).

I had a Dream
By Rajnish Mishra

I had a dream, not a long time ago.
It’s not the kind that I have anymore.
In that dream I went back in time to a place
that’s not there anymore.
They were playing cricket there.
I was playing my own age.
So, I stood and watched them having all the fun.
There were walls and gates that told me where I was.
There were gates and walls that told me it was not the same place.
Some old walls, and one old gate cannot overwrite erasure
that many new walls and a gate that was not back then may effect.
So I stood there,
an outsider, unknown, unwanted, invisible,
I stood tentatively and watched the game from out of the boundary lines.
Now you smile at an unreliable narrator.
How can I recall such detailed lists? I smile too.
You have caught me alright.
Some details are false,
but the dream is true.