SUSAN AUSTIN

Melt-down

 

          There is a pause in the monopoly game
as you watch in disbelief.
My features rapidly slip away,
body following a neat series of contortions,
skin and tissue sliding
          silently downwards
as I disintegrate into a sticky melt pool,
sucked up quickly by the thirsty floorboards.
A sickening silence as you try and comprehend.
          I know what this means -
Now when you walk all over me,
I won't feel a thing.

 

Susan Austin grew up in Queensland and has settled in Hobart where she writes poetry in between working as an occupational therapist and being an eco-socialist activist. She has published poetry in various newspapers, journals and anthologies. She has won prizes in several FAW (Tas) poetry competitions, and was the judge of the 2012 WILPF Eve Masterman Peace Poetry Prize. Susan has been a featured reader in many events including the Hobart Republic Readings, The Tasmanian Living Writers' Week and the 2011 Tasmanian Poetry Festival. The poem 'Bookshop capers' appeared in famous reporter 43, and in Susan's collection Undertow (Walleah Press, October 2012). She blogs at www.susanaustinpoetry.blogspot.com.au