Lachlan Brown is a lecturer in English literature and creative writing at Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga. His first volume, Limited Cities, was published by Girmondo in 2012 and was commended for the Mary Gilmore Prize. He has been shortlisted for the Blake Prize and the Newcastle Poetry prize. His poems have appeared in journals including Cordite, Mascara, Antipodes and Rabbit. Lachlan is currently working on a manuscript that explores his Chinese-Australian heritage, his grandmother’s hoarding, and the complex promises of the Asian century.

(self-justification)

Every stupid thing has a story
that ties it back to the house.
Words follow me outside,
threaten quiet atrocities.
But after a while I stop
listening to outro tracks,
the security door locking on its own,
my body leaving to fill the sixth dumpster.

(even chance or, why you find it difficult to speak with people in a lift)

peaceful evil
turbo-dieselling
consumer sentiment
with your dumb tongue
like that folding bicycle
your uncle brought
back from Taiwan
in his decade of tricks and risk