Creative Writing Student Feature
Carrie Cummings is a student in Professor McAleavey’s Intermediate Poetry 2, 107W, class.
Mother’s Arrival in Omaha, 1985
He peeled her off the canvas of a Klimt he saw in Paris,
wrapped her up in brown paper
– her red tendrils leaked from the edges –
and shipped her home to meet his mother
(who, upon her arrival, said,
“the painter could have used a nice navy blue instead”).
Fucked her in his beige bedroom
and thought it love making.
Stripped the fire from her hair, turned it brown,
and hung her above the mantel beside
his grandfather’s musket.
