by FABIYAS M V
Waves leap over his roof again.
Coconut sentinels lose their heads.
His breakwater breaks, but he won’t
flee to the monsoon refugee camp.
People and the press stand amid
the lightning from cameras. Their
rapture is with the waves rising
high to touch the rain clouds.
They’re on a spree in the sea spray.
They’re far-sighted, for they can’t
see this fisherman sitting like a crow-
pheasant in the remains of his yard.
He’s no pension, but only tension.
Yet he’ll neither mutter nor murmur.
Now he curls as a prawn on a wet
sack inside his half-eaten hut.
If the sea doesn’t swallow him tonight,
he’ll wake up early, pick up his net,
and set out to catch sardine, mackerel,
pink perch, tuna and the like, for them.
Fabiyas M V
*Monsoon season started with heavy rain. A realistic portrait of
a fisherman and his hut from the shore of Kerala State in India.