To Aylan: Another Son

My son also used to lie down like this

In his little red T-shirt and blue shorts

With those little shoes growing wings

Not there on a sea shore so violent

But on the shore of my love-cool and wet

Like ants on an iron fruit they clutch

On each other; the last effort to freedom

My son also used to lie down like this

On his stomach, in his little shoes and shirt

I used to stand like a soldier noting down

His dreams and smiles, then I carry him

On my arms, gently to the bathroom

Where he would wake with a scream

And give me a teary smile, my son

Refugees we are, having rotten passports

With faces that are despicable unto them

The consul cannot bang his fist on the table

My son, for the time has changed by you

Like my friend’s photographed doll

And like the sand filled shirts on a distant shore

In a mock act of serial suicides and holocaust

You alone fill the shore, like Gulliver in sleep

So ashamed of the world of moral dwarfs

Yes, my son too used to sleep like you

Let him assure peace to the world like Buddha

If not in the way that you have done by your death