Missing Person Poem by Boghos Artinian

Every now and then
human bones are recovered
in someone's land
that was being plowed.
It could be one of the thousands
who had disappeared
without any trace
in the thirty years
of civil war.
Identification
almost impossible;
next of kin have stopped
asking for his body
or have died themselves.
To whose DNA
Should we compare his?
Better bury him again
in a land never plowed
and mark his new grave
with a number.

Boghos L. Artinian MD