Published in Overland Issue Tribulations from the digital frontier · Poetry / The internet Vague, or I Can’t Explain It Any Other Way Toby Fitch You have a new memory: Every practicing psychologist ever has that Japanese print of the Tsunami in their office, says a poet on Facebook. The system only dreams in total dankness. There’s an overflow of green apricots in the back alley where I walk most days with my daughters to Black Star. The sun’s not a sphere, it’s a tunnel. I just wanna get past all the squashed hearts, I tell my eldest. No they’re hearts of Te Fiti, she rebukes, asking me to carry one. Last night she had bad dreams about crocodiles because they’re in Fantasia, dancing with the tutu-ed hippos (they’re basically the patriarchy and it’s definitely not like Moana). Is mummy at work today? Yes, it’s what’s paying for your Ginger Ninja, honey, can I have a bite? Her fake wail rose then like a wave over the jangle of Belly, her soft toy whale. Were there sirens on Hawai’i after that missile text was sent out en masse, everyone there islands at the whim of more awesome fake forces? I wonder what happened to whales near Japan when that Tōhoku earthquake thrusted a mega chunk of earth up, displacing an even more massive chunk of water – did their sonar go haywire? The vision on the USYD gym screens was unclear (and nuclear) – I’d been thinking I could make the basketball team to avoid my PhD but then two shoes collided head-on in a defensive scramble, lifting my left big toe -nail from its quick. In any event, I hadn’t read Derrida yet, and a ghost called ‘You’ called me from work to check whether I was seeing this black sludge swallowing roads. I already had my mouth open (not just in agony) – I was swiping over cracks in my phone to see if Fukushima hadn’t gone under completely when the screen lit up, buzzed beneath my thumb, as it does again now with the girls around me crumbling at Black Star, Belly jangling, a shooting pain inside my toe where my toenail used to be entrenched: you have a new memory. Image: Mohd Hafizuddin Husin / flickr Toby Fitch Toby Fitch, living on unceded Gadigal land, is poetry editor of Overland, a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Sydney, and the author of eight books of poetry, including Sydney Spleen and Where Only the Sky had Hung Before. More by Toby Fitch › 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 6 November 20246 November 2024 · Poetry TV Times Kate Lilley I try out for Can Can after school / knowing I’m not cut out for the high kicks / Ballads chansons show tunes ok / I can belt out Judy Garland and all the songs from Oliver / “Who Will Buy”/”As Long as He Needs Me” / Wher-e-e-e-ere is love 25 October 20244 November 2024 · Poetry Phar Lap Ender Başkan we have a horse in our shed dad look dad me and gabe are feeding him grass he likes grass he eats grass and chaff dad gabe said his name is phar lap dad come on phar lap! i got some grass for yooooou!