Against the Megarians

Where lie the borderlands
Of the explanation
Versus the narrative?

Every border’s a state
Of its own that neither
Is nor isn’t, neither

Is nor is excluded,
Keeps indeterminate.
Sometimes the border’s fine,

So narrow as to be
All but invisible.
Sometimes there’s a formal

DMZ, twinned borders
On either side of that.
Or it sprawls, unpoliced,

Potentially either,
Thus its own dynamic.
Explanation’s like that,

Or rather, the unnamed
And indeterminate
No-One’s land that stretches

Out explanation’s edge,
Touching narrative lands.
When have you passed across,

Among nations, and when
Are you merely marooned?
Likely story, you say,

When an explanation
Seems too contorted, seems
Too fantastic, or seems

To explain too neatly
Too much. That’s when you know
You’re in the phantom zone

Between explication
From beginning to end,
Which would be narrative,

And wholly beginning
Again with another
Plotless explanation.

Oh, us? We’re those species
Evolved in potentia
Within these borderlands.