Fisherman, Kerala by Alison Hackett

Cross-legged, hunched over, threading,
knotting, the knuckles of his spine arc
down his brown back. The fisherman pauses,
puts his tools down and stands to adjust his dhoti.
Flicking out the span of white cotton, arms spread wide,
he whirls it up, knots it in at the waist, squats back down.
Achilles tendons stretched sharp, he sets to mending nets again.

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Alison Hackett, Irish born in 1961, is the founder of publishing house, 21st Century Renaissance; she is the author of ‘The Visual Time Traveller 500 Years of History, Art and Science in 100 Unique designs’ which was selected for the Global Irish Design Challenge exhibition in Dublin Castle 2016. In 2017 she published a debut volume of poetry ‘Crabbing’ and later that year ‘Yours etc Letters printed in Irish and British papers 2010–2017’. She collaborated with visual artist, Sheila Naughton, for the Hinterland ArtNetdlr exhibition in Dun Laoghaire, May 2019. They created 18 new pieces of work blending handwriting and paint for the exhibition. Read more here: https://www.21cr.ie

Photo: Andrés Canchón