Lost

I wanted you to play
with dolls and prams.
You preferred your
brother’s toy guns.
On your sixth birthday you
asked for a child’s play army outfit.
Ten years later and you
were wearing a real one.

The day before you left
I tried to change your mind.
But you said, ‘those people
need our help, Mum.’
And that foreign land
snatched you from me.

No poppy fields for you
with white cross.
Your grave is lost
in a barren landscape,
but if you’re lucky
it will be marked
with a piece of wood
and perhaps an old tin can.