Published in Overland Issue 206 Autumn 2012 Uncategorized Sonar Toby Fitch From a drunken cruise on the harbour comes a bouncing melody: I wanna have sex on the beach. Anyone can see it on everyone’s mind As the summertime trees nod assent In the Botanic Gardens, Their scent wafting up the nostrils Of skyscrapers breathing in fumes, Pumping out bucks, Relaying UV to the ant-sized joggers Who bound up and down along the shoreline On sand grains jostling for legroom. Above them, birds, checking out the goods Of a small grey woman staring at the bridge, Thinking: I wanna walk across water Like sound, as her skin remembers a distant Prickling, another season, A sun and a wind that lifts her hairs. Toby Fitch Toby Fitch is Overland’s poetry editor, a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Sydney, and the poet behind Rawshock, Bloomin’ Notions, Where Only the Sky had Hung Before and, most recently, Sydney Spleen. He is the editor of the poetry anthologies Best of Australian Poems 2021 (co-edited with Ellen van Neerven) and Groundswell: The Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New & Emerging Poets 2007–2020. 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 First published in Overland Issue 228 31 March 2023 Poetry Poetry | Dog walking in the desert Leni Shilton Mparntwe | Alice Springs claypans Each time you walk take a bag for the rubbish, for the weeds. Stride out then confuse the dog as you stop over and over, like you are picking at treasure. You dig with the heel of your boot at the sea of three-corner-jack prickles and remind yourself next time to bring gloves. First published in Overland Issue 228 30 March 202331 March 2023 Culture RollerCoaster Tycoon and the art of niche hobbies Zac Picker As a writer, I spend too much time awake at night worrying about building an audience for my work. And yet, I spend even more time awake at night, planning my next RollerCoaster Tycoon park in my head, for an audience of the hundred-or-so RCT parkmakers I care about the most.
