I hope I survive this. I want to tell
Reluctant teenagers in twenty years
“Schools’s boring? Listen, we were bored to tears
In 2020! It was living hell!
You don’t like what’s for dinner? Let me spell
It out for you. Back then we would have cheered
For canteen chips!” I want to be that weird
Curmudgeon with a veritable well
Of anecdotes. I’ll tell them of the queues
Spaced two metres apart, and of the masks
The cough, the chills and fever and the dread.
And even though it’s selfish, I would choose
If possible, to be here when they ask
To, one day, tell them stories of the dead.
Tom Juniper Poetry 