You Are Open to the Universe

like a lighthouse in the desert
blinking comfort at a receding shore line.
Himalayan rocks printed with jazz mantras
appear in your soup,
but you never break your teeth.
When you shaved your head,
we found a map of India.
In airport food courts,
distant ice cream makes your teeth ache.
You sleep beneath dried leaves
from a dozen cities,
letters written on rattling trams by starlight.
You have the hands of a raccoon
intent on washing a fish.
There is no snow so white
as your sleeping mind,
where memories twist and spin
like pennies dropped off a high bridge
into blue bay waters.
You talk to yourself the way
sailors on long voyages carved
profiles of women and animals
into whale teeth, listening to the sounds
of creaking rigging, art from the whale’s gaping mouth.
You are open to the universe
like the door of a church
murky with incense and solemn with song.
I stand gazing in,
pulled by the glint of candles,
drawn by the murmur of prayer.


David Thornbrugh is an American poet currently living in Krakow, Poland. Recent publications include Hidden Oak Poetry Journal, Freefall, Prism Quarterly and Slant, a Journal of Poetry.