SEA PRAYER - Bloomsbury

My dear Marwan, I look at your profile in the glow of this moon, my boy, your eyelashes like calligraphy, closed in guileless sleep. And I say to you, 'Hold my hand. Nothing bad will happen.'

On a moonlit beach a father speaks to his sleeping son of his childhood days, recalling his grandfather's house outside Homs in Syria, the stirring of olive trees in the breeze, the bleating of his grandmother's goat. And he remembers Homs, the bustling city with its crowded lanes, its mosque and grand souk, before the sky spat bombs and they had to flee.

When dawn breaks they and those around them will embark on a perilous sea journey in search of a new home.