History will wash its hands of 2020

Wuhan bats and disposable masks,

Just another year in human annals

Fodder for future historians' tasks

 

Who'd have thought it a year ago?

A holocaust of innocent old dears

Lockdowns and social distancing

I always felt it would end in Tiers

 

Hand gel and hissing ventilators

Dodgy oxygen levels all the rage,

Vulnerable citizens hide, shielding,

No different from rats in a cage

 

Reservoirs dry out as hand-washing

Morphs into pseudo-religious rite,

Grey academics hand-wring on TV

Exhibiting symptoms of hindsight

 

Cronies securing lucrative contracts

Middlemen make millions from PPE,

Care workers get minimum wages

Class discrimination there to see

 

A public enquiry into this fiasco

Might benefit from test and trace,

Millionaires garbed in legal visors

From Monaco fighting their case

 

Hot-spots of greed and exploitation

Making fortunes out of sickness,

Waves of well-connected elites

Breathless from sheer slickness

 

A Brave New World of vaccines

Synthetic, experimental, hasty

Guinea pigs roll up your sleeves

Pharmaceutical earnings tasty

 

But what about the year to come?

What to do if a mutation calls?

There's nowhere to emigrate to

Fear's got the globe by the balls