The poem imagines the self not as one solid thing but as a crowd. The title, "I embrace multitudes," sets that tone: the speaker is willing to live with many versions of themselves rather than force them into a single identity. The opening lines say our selves can be "one or many / at their own table," as if they were guests sitting down together, sometimes agreeing, sometimes not.
The middle of the poem is less comfortable. Something creates "a kind of inward distance," and the words "void or wound" suggest that this multiplicity can hurt or leave a gap. The selves "dissemble one towards another like a parliament," pretending, posturing and talking past each other the way politicians might.
Yet the ending turns calm. These selves have "nothing more to do / than make clear music." The mood shifts from tension to a quiet hope: all the pretending and distance might settle into harmony. The speaker seems to find peace in being many, not in becoming one.