So many similarities – a tricksy pox
incubated in animals, its sneaky manner
of hitching a ride on the back of travellers
pattering down the Silk Road, folk
of the better sort* getting the hell
out of the capital to an upscale
pied-à-terre on the outskirts of Bath …
but the most macabre parallel
was with plague searchers, women tasked
like Goodwife Hubble, tuppence a corpse
for hurried rummages and scribbled records
of death. No gels or protective masks,
just themselves grappling with loved ones.
There is nothing that is new under the sun**.

*Daniel Defoe A Journal Of The Plague Year
** Ecclesiastes 1:9