I Talk As If Someone Listens To Me Poem by shirish kumar mourya

All through the night
like a favorite black and white heroine from old movies
memories circle around
covered in clothes from tip to toe
under a few strong hilly trees and dense wildberry bushes
a few scenes come running down the slope like awkward idiotic heroes

After a continual stupor
I wake up to see one more morning lying outside the door
blood dripping from its elbow
an equally blood-drenched newspaper sagging under it
It appears like a beaten-up woman
My wife ignores it as if it is just my morning not hers

I look at my swollen eyelid in the light of my morning
Tea grows cold on the table

The reek of old times roosting in my mouth gets thicker after wild cleaning

A layer of dead skin molts from my hands and my son stares at me in wonder

And so I finally get ready and step out to the outside world
and there I talk loudly as if someone listens to me.

(Translated from the Hindi by Bharatbhooshan Tiwari.)