Coloring

I was five, and
I colored everything with black…
The barn, the tree, the people—
All was black.
The sky was black.
The grass became ebony too.

My mother had tact
And hated to criticize,
But she worried
And lamented the drawings each time I brought them home.

“Why does he color in black?” she asked my grandmother as she pondered
My pathology.
“Ask him,” my grandmother said.

She did.
And my response:
“Everyone else took the other crayons.”