Published in Overland Issue 203 Winter 2011 · Main Posts Ode to Business Man on Crown Street Adam Formosa Turning invisible will come as a blow. (if you turn your glasses upside down you can see the other side) Don’t let the waitress know or you won’t get your eggs Benedict! First turn your fingers to fist, (because they’ll surely know) tuck your feet under the table, hide those mustard-gas shoes, while your skin sinks inside itself. It folds and folds and folds until the table next to you (discussing how a 747 can’t drop into the sea) sees you squirming, undressing her words like crunching Velcro. Your hand passes through your macchiato! your fingertips – like glass – gleam hollow. (gone to the bottom of the Atlantic!) Next your: 1) sleeves will depress 2) tongue will fade 3) wallet will bulge under your empty suit So when the waitress comes, she’ll think you’ve done a birthday-runner, so pack light, the Atlantic is thirty-seven stories deep. Adam Formosa is a third-year creative writing student at the University of Wollongong. He was recently published in Best Australian Poetry. © Adam Formosa Overland 203-winter 2011, p. 73 Like this piece? Subscribe! Adam Formosa Adam Formosa is a NSW South Coast-based poet, whose best work comes out while listening to Deadmau5. More by Adam Formosa Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays First published in Overland Issue 228 25 May 202326 May 2023 · Main Posts The ‘Chinese question’ and colonial capitalism in New Gold Mountain Christy Tan SBS’s New Gold Mountain sets out to recover the history of the Gold Rush from the marginalised perspective of Chinese settlers but instead reinforces the erasure of Indigenous sovereignty. Although celebrated for its multilingual script and diverse representation, the mini-TV series ignores how the settlement of Chinese migrants and their recruitment into colonial capitalism consolidates the ongoing displacement of First Nations peoples. First published in Overland Issue 228 15 February 202322 February 2023 · Main Posts Self-translation and bilingual writing as a transnational writer in the age of machine translation Ouyang Yu To cut a long story short, it all boils down to the need to go as far away from oneself as possible before one realizes another need to come back to reclaim what has been lost in the process while tying the knot of the opposite ends and merging them into a new transformation.
