Fraser Sutherland

Procedure

Pushing your portable stanchion
you are conducted
by a large dark stranger
down dim industrial tunnels
to a bright cheerful bustling room.
You hoist yourself on a trolley
nudging others and
women do painless things to you
Then you are in the dusk
of a narrow terminal
under a low sky
in a long dim line
of others like you,
parked on shelves
ready for shifting.
Female presences glide on
reassuring business.
They have errands.
Then there is nothing.
Then you awake in the light.

Fraser Sutherland is a Canadian poet, editor, and lexicographer who's published 11 books, most recently Peace & War (poems, with Goran Simic).