The machine invents a source
that does not exist –

a paper published
in a journal
no one founded,
authored by a scholar
no one taught.

It cites the year.
The volume.
The page.

Every detail
precise
except the fact
of it.

We call this
hallucination,
as if the error
were a fever-dream
and not a confident,
unblinking
lie
dressed
in the language
of the real.