Not my child
Laying limp in the sand
Face down in the sea

Not my child
Huddled unbreathing
In a cargo container

Not my child
Stranded alone
Dead on a beach

Not my child
The curl of his fingers
The curve of his cheek

Not my child
Hair soft as thistledown
On the nape of his neck

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Author’s Notes
1. I wrote ‘Not My Child’ in response to the growing number of children dying in Europe as they and their families try to reach safety as they flee from violence in their home countries.

2. The poem won second place in the Universal Human Rights Student Network’s human rights poetry contest. The theme of the contest was ‘Refugees and the message to Europe’. The short-listed poems can be found here.

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Copyright © 2015 Lindsay Oliver