Where will they be on Xmas day?

As our children
stare wide eyed
at glass cases of sweets
that their poor fathers
can no longer afford to buy for them
to sweeten their Xmas days -
where will the shefs* be on that day?

As mothers patch old clothes
that their children can cover their buttocks and their husbands their crotches between their perforated trouser legs

as cockroaches threaten mutiny
inside bare cupboards
faced by the beautiful face of hunger
in houses where once voices laughed
on sunny Xmas days -
where will the shefs be on that day
with their looted public funds

*shef - party big shots