Gontse Dube's four lines give two abstract nouns a voice and then eavesdrop on them. A wish asks a fantasy what it wants most, and the fantasy answers that it wants "to be real." When the question is turned back on the wish, the reply is simply "me too." That is the whole exchange, yet it holds a large idea: the things we imagine are not content to stay imagined. A fantasy is supposed to be weightless and free of rules, but here it is quietly incomplete, longing for the one thing it cannot give itself.
The cleverness lies in who is talking. A wish and a fantasy are close cousins, both made of wanting, so there is something almost comic about a wish asking another creature about "desire," as if desire were interviewing itself. Yet the poem takes the encounter seriously, and an irony sits underneath it. Getting what they want would end them. A fantasy that becomes real is no longer a fantasy, and a wish that is granted is no longer a wish. Their greatest desire is, in a way, to stop being what they are. The poem never says this outright, but it is built into the logic of the two answers, and it gives the little scene a bittersweet edge.
The shape of the poem follows this deflation. The first line is long, about fourteen syllables by my count, and has the formal ring of an interview question. "Greatest desire" makes us expect something grand, such as love, power or freedom. The answer arrives in a handful of plain words, "to be real," and the build-up collapses into something far humbler and far heavier. "Real" is the simplest word in the poem and the one that carries the most weight. After that the lines keep shrinking. "What about you?" has only four syllables, and the closing line has six. The poem seems to contract as it goes, narrowing from stately phrasing to confession.
Small grammatical choices add to this. In the first line the fantasy is "its," an object being questioned at arm's length. By the third line it is "you," and the conversation has turned from interrogation to something closer to friendship. Line three also has no speaker attached, so we infer that the fantasy is now asking the wish, and the missing tag invites us to supply the voice ourselves. Punctuation is minimal: one question mark and two commas. Judging by the effect, the commas after "replied" work like a short breath before each answer, as if each speaker needs a moment to admit what it wants.
Sound does quiet work too. The first two lines do not rhyme, since "desire" and "real" never meet. The rhyme comes only at the end, with "you" and "too," exactly where the two voices agree. "Me too" even echoes the "you" before it, so the wish's answer is literally the fantasy's question coming back. The repeated "replied" and the opening and closing "A wish" frame the poem like a pair of bookends. The indefinite articles matter as well. It is "a wish" and "a fantasy," not particular ones, so the dialogue could be happening inside anyone's head.
There is almost no visual imagery here. The image is the personification itself, abstractions seated opposite each other like people, much as fables let animals talk. The poem is untitled, marked only by asterisks, which makes it feel overheard mid-conversation. It also stops without telling us whether either will ever become real. "Me too" is an admission, not a resolution.
That restraint is what makes the poem worth reading. In so few words it reframes imagination as something unfinished, always leaning toward the world. It also offers a gentle comfort: the wish and the fantasy are not alone in wanting more than they are. Readers may well see themselves in them, in any hope or daydream still waiting to be made real.