is not
fact fiction
reality /
––falsehood?
Only in agreement
at the level of language,
Berkeley observed, can
we have any firm system
of sound and real knowledge.
Until some common understanding
of some common words is breached,
disputes will be in vain. One response,
however temporary, is to lay these
words aside, let them rest like sore
legs after a long race, like a hot pan
before you get to washing, like the
need to prove anything beyond the
texture of the silence as it breathes
here, in the space before we speak
again.