In the white soup
that is my usual view of things
there is a voice — god or worm,
sluice or wind — I repeat 
whatever it says.

When the white soup clears
now and then a different voice
I somewhat recognize tells me
different things and I repeat those as well,
unconcerned with contradiction.

What sloshes around in me?
I’m damp inside and out, never 
dry and warm, always shivering.
The wet noises resolve and revolve
into pronouncements or lies,

or maybe not.  Maybe every voice
is real.  Maybe I am the evidence
for polytheism and its best argument.
Maybe I should listen to everything said
and call it all true,

and if I’m paralyzed by that
then I am 
right where I’m supposed to be —
and the rest of you
wearing those strained smiles in my presence

should conduct yourself according to your fashion
when in the presence of a vessel of the gods,
or a crazy person. Whichever
makes more sense for you
as I stand here thinking out loud.