Coverage
Toby Fitch (Sydney University, Australia)
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Water channels part:
your sweaty thumb slips
from the number 8, stunned.
Carpet stains where the remote drops
are a permanent reminder
of your love for live TV:
the asteroid fiascos,
wearing ecliptic sunglasses
for moments when the earth stops.
The second we realise the atmos-
phere’s mass ascendancy,
dark matter dominates
our deficient space:
imploding into silence
with the pin-drop of a lens.
It’s so titanic there’s nothing
you can do about it!
And the coverage:
time divided by velocity,
quicker than light
in its hyperbolic spell to reassure you
that all this wasted oxygen is
worth your wasted time.
These kaleidoscopic tides
(image upon image)
from the ground gaping up:
a shock of orange in a clear blue sky.
Again, from the smoke-
screen of the street:
a shock of orange in a clear blue sky.
And again, just to rub it in,
in case you’re entrenched
in a glossy magazine:
a shock of orange in a clear blue sky.
One more time
from the channel-changing
couch (terrorized):
a shock of orange in a grey-blue sky.
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Toby Fitch is an author and musician who was born in London and raised in Sydney. His chapbook of poems Everyday Static was published in 2010 by Vagabond Press. His first full-length book of poems is forthcoming, Raw Shock, through Puncher & Wattman.
