Contract Cheating Sonnet
How many inanimate lids get
peeled back in dreams? Those repet-
-itions seem old hat & quaint in our unpre-
-cedented age. Metadata was obvs set
artificially after the fact. It’s an improb-
-bable figure (79 thousand minutes)
for starters, the calendar set stupid limits,
the file was open for some wackjob
period that makes no sense. But
editing takes for, like, ever. So much
cutting required. That or time dilated
in the moment before word was shut
(a day is like a thousand years). Such
miracles inherited from what Malley created.
peeled back in dreams? Those repet-
-itions seem old hat & quaint in our unpre-
-cedented age. Metadata was obvs set
artificially after the fact. It’s an improb-
-bable figure (79 thousand minutes)
for starters, the calendar set stupid limits,
the file was open for some wackjob
period that makes no sense. But
editing takes for, like, ever. So much
cutting required. That or time dilated
in the moment before word was shut
(a day is like a thousand years). Such
miracles inherited from what Malley created.
Lachlan Brown is a Senior Lecturer in English at Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga. His poems have appeared in journals including Cordite, Rabbit and the Australian Book Review.