(Upon hearing the announcement that Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra called on Thailand's 62 million people to each make a paper dove to promote peace in the violence-wracked Muslim-majority south.

The paper birds would be dropped out of the back of military aircraft over the worst-hit southern provinces where more than 540 people have died this year.)

What is a paper dove

compared to 18 years of raising

a sturdy son,

handsome, still growing

a mixture of teen anxiety and almost adult confidence,

he was full of the awkward grace of young men

Muscular biceps

accompanied with a diffident smile,

showing off after a swim

in the river with his friends

My growing son,

snubbed out as he lay

suffocating beneath layers of fasted bodies

heavy, bound but struggling

dumped like rice sacks in a police truck

till blue in the face

What is a paper dove

Released to the winds of Yala,

Narathiwat, Pattani, Songkhla

When other winds blow southward

Their callous brutality a mockery

The men in the mosque that day

Machetes and prayers were all their arms

Nothing much, really,

against military bullets and artillery fire

But you won't apologise

Not for their massacre

nor for the 80 dead demonstrators

- my son among them

I hear no rumour of government compensation

No policy change towards my people

except the silent assurance

of more violence looming ahead

And now, you pretend

to fight against our outrage

Not only with hollow promises

but empty symbols?

My son he went on his scooter

to witness the demonstration

Neighbours tell me he stood by the side

watching. He never came back.

This much I know.

So Prime Minister Thaksin,

take and swallow your false paper bird

for I know you can't

give me back my flesh and blood.