I tried to capture my authentic voice
My inner voice, my true-something-me-ness
But the little ****** is elusive
And free it remains, wild and free, to this night

So I deploy an inauthentic voice
An outer voice, only maybe it’s not;
Perhaps it’s an Hegelian dialectic
A voice cobbled together from castoffs

On a sale-table down at Goodwill, I found
A gently-used voice – so how do I sound?