When a Child Asks His Grandmother a Simple Question
The boy asks me what my favorite color is
and his mother tells him I like black
because it represents death,
which he cannot comprehend.
But no—I love much more
than the absence of color,
The absence of light
showcases pinprick shimmers
only visible when the sun flees
or we flee from it. This is why
I thrill in the gift of black, for all
that would be obscured without it,
like the face of God in the star Regulus,
divinity held in a telescope
a boy’s hand is too small to hold.
Claudia M. Stanek’s work has been turned into a libretto, been part of an art exhibition, and been translated into Polish. She is the author of the chapbooks Language You Refuse to Learn (BHP, 2014) and Beneath Occluded Shine (FLP, 2025). Her poems appear in Susurrus, The Windhover, Cutleaf, Ekstasis, Solum, and Book of Matches. Claudia spent a Writer’s Residency in Bialystok, Poland. She holds an MFA from Bennington College. After a lifetime in the frozen tundra of Western New York, Claudia now lives in East Tennessee with her elderly dogs, where she also rescues the occasional overheated hummingbird.
Amethyst Review 