According to what I’ve been told
The voice of God is deep like a river,
does not quiver, and would never have
my gay lisp.
It rumbles in its righteous wrath while simultaneously
Whispering to all the sleeping children in America.
I have nodded my head in agreement
But I’ve secretly tried my best to              
Rearrange His pronouns.

From what I’ve heard,
The voice I should hear would be located somewhere
between my ears
Or behind my sternum.
However, the only voice I’ve heard
Coming from those places
Has sounded oddly vague and often undecided,
What a funny way to describe
The sound of a prowling lion!
Ha!    

If you would like me to be honest with you
The voice of God does not sound like a Father, a Son,
Or even a pale benevolent Ghost.
Because of this
I try to wrangle it into the throat of
my grandfather
or at least the mouth of
Morgan Freeman,
But it just hollers and squawks and eventually I find
That it wiggles out of
My bunched up fists
And perches in the rafters, smirking,
Always just out of reach!

When I am listening for it
it doesn’t sound like a voice at all.
In fact, it sounds oddly like
The throb of veins in my temples
Or the ocean of air
Harnessed by the gravity of
My lungs.

I do not explain it in those terms
to most people
Because I’m afraid they’ll figure out
That I'm the kind of person who
Smokes ***.

Maybe somewhere in my doughy brain
A battery has rotted into a pool of acid
Or one single electrical chord has wriggled free
From the gaping mouth and geometric eyes
of its socket.

Even still, would you believe me when I say
no one has heard God speak?
Not even Moses!
But I am sure even he
(and especially Tagore)
have heard God’s voice.
Yes, that must be right!

My friend heard it on the sidewalk
just last week.
This man let out a primal grunt
After he kissed his boyfriend and
A stranger stabbed him in the shoulder.  

No! Actually I hear it often
from cousin Tamir;
The one whose vocal chords no longer
Clap joyously together.
Somehow I can still watch as it thunders and crashes
with uncompromising power
Across sterile court rooms and silent mothers.

But please, don’t stop there! That’s almost right but it’s not
everything.
I think the smell of Auntie Walker’s breath
could contain at least
One syllable.

What I know about God’s voice is that it is
set loose by everything.
It shakes and dances and tickles the bellies
Of everyone
And everything
that lives in this holy space.

My head, my heart, and
All the fathers on the earth cannot contain it to
A single bass.  

My only prayer is that maybe
God’s voice wouldn’t always sound so deep to
the people who have told me this.
I pray to God,
Whoever she is,
That she would let her words
land upon the vibrations of my own
gay lisp
From time to time.