7 SEPTEMBER 1991, Page 34

Dakar, a beggar child

I commend this orphan child to my dead father, my grandparents. She was so endearing, so lovable. Help her against the dark, the loneliness of death. Help her into heaven. She was just off her sixth birthday. Let her play at God's feet with scraps of heaven as she used to in the gutters here. Let her remember my name in her songs of prayer. Let her tiny bones not be heavily borne down, o ground: she was so light in her short time to you.

Michael Kelly After Martial, v, 34