Susan Culver

At the NASA School of Art

Even in dreams, he's drawing her now,
scratching out that bluer hue,
the dizzy of her dance. Again,
again, with the thinnest brush,
he's got her smile down to the bright
that birthed it, the breath that sustains it,
the close that brings him closer and apart.

Don't ask him where he's been, he's been
too far to tell you now; is gone with the ages,
with the sweet, sweet distance; gone
with Galileo at the ice queen's insistence:
Oh, Europa, Europa, of a thousand pearls,
an infrared thread that pulls, that pulls him
from earth to air with a waketread
of half-finished portraits, a heart
gone gray from the yearning.

And even in dreams, he's given up sleeping;
has traded the night for an unblinking eye,
a whitegloved hand for the asking, but don't ask him
where he's been now, he's in the court
of the uncommon, of a very different god,
is trying to find the moment, the place,
a single capture
of that beautiful face, knowing men like him
have died for less - yes -
but they have never loved her more.

A Lost Chapter


And three days. A double bed in a single room. Assumed names.

The shower ran for hours, the lamp was always on.

Voice mail captured frantic bits of their ordinary lives.

He sketched her in blue but he dreamt her in red. She was always on the edge
of some fortuitous skyline.

She wore his shirt or she wore nothing. They made love as though they'd invented
love.

Someone fell and someone felt set free. Someone cried a name and someone
called the police.

All the messages went unanswered.