FISHER WOMAN OF KERALA
By Seema Gill
She is not walking
She’s churning the sea
Sculpting hope
Each step cast on the tight rope
As sharp as the edge of a tidal wave!
She is not watching
Her eyes shower stars and dreams
hung upon the barbed wire
of survival!
She is not breathing
She’s melting the ring of fire
Each flame drips the sweat of her labour
into the fat belly of a shark!
She is not living
She is clothed in the layers of misconception
chasing the light and shadow
as they squeeze her body in a python grip!
She is not sleeping
She’s getting ready
to swim the life’s unglazed clay pot
risking her self
desperate for salvation!
She is not rising
She’s fuming with discontent
fighting to get free
from the claws of slavery
Wrapped in her arms is a bundle of hungry children!
And yet the roof over her head is a tattered norm
as fragile as the ray of Sun
hitting her conscience with an iron glow!
lovely and brutal!
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