The atheist agnostic mystic
free-thinker fundamentalist Episcopalian
heretic Buddhist fire-
eyed Muslim ritual-incensed Catholic

holds dialogues and trialogues
and multilogues all night
inside himself
inside the kitchen of my brain.

Chain smokes his arguments
slams fist on the table
squashes cockroaches of all opposing

views and most of all
of all gullible
believers.  All night
he keeps me up, opening and

closing my refrigerator door,
popping cans of god beer inside
my being, running with his

fingertips rifts of god, no-god, god
irrelevant, new god, or god
erased like the Nixon tapes.  I wish
to hell he’d
go……to……hell.

But if he makes to go, I
beg him stay  —  but please
don’t let the neighbors
know

he’s here
because I fear downstairs
the cynic sophisticate ag-
nostic and
his smart-ass buddy a-
theist

will think
I think
I have
a soul.