Ode to Business Man on Crown Street


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

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Adam Formosa

Adam Formosa is a NSW South Coast-based poet, whose best work comes out while listening to Deadmau5.

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