There's a body on the mid-winter beach

Bloated by sea water, battered by waves,

The skin is an indeterminate grey but the DNA

Gives it away: stomach distended, flesh eaten away,

The soul departed leaving a package of flesh behind

With sea weeds dancing from the open mouth 

That once kissed another, a mother and a lover

Spoke words of comfort to the dying bereaved:

Religion indeterminate, nationality left behind.

Look at the legs that carried the body

Over rugged montains, across freezing tundra,

Over deserts thirsty, prickly with heat, across borders. 

Look at the eyes which read the newspapers

And scanned the phones. Read holy books

And erotic poetry and letters from home.

While a heart that was broken by war, death and loss

Gathered the strength to begin life all over again.

That grey mush was a brain that loved to tussle,

Think and debate. Those fingers wrote elegies

That were gateways to all the planets and stars.

In classical Arabic she argued it was never too late

To begin life again, soon, in beauiful Aleppo.