Stuck Out the Back

This one is about an ordinary moment that wasn’t ordinary at all—a brief encounter with something that couldn’t be unseen

…

The shop smells of antiseptic

and meat. Beyond the translucent

plastic door is the workroom

floor with banks of noisy machines.

One of them goes quiet,

and there is a worker, all in white,

with a white hairnet, and his hand

is somewhere inside

the machine. He is pale and

unmoving, but it is his eyes

I notice. People go to him.

Some stay, others hurry off and,

all the while, his face

is a waxy mask of

shock.

I’m frozen too—

I want to call an

ambulance but

someone probably has.

I think.

Then another someone

closes the white

metal door and

cuts off

the scene. I look around

the storefront—

somehow alien, now—

and realise I am the only one who

has seen and who isn’t

shopping.

…

…

I just stand there,

but my mind is still in

the room out the back.

---

…

…

This poem is part of the counter field.