I agreed with what Maria was saying at the end of class--this poem is short, but what more is there to write about? This woman's life has no flowing description anymore. She has been hollowed out by the brutal murder of her child. Not only is this short poem very black and white in its meaning, but it is literally about black and white. I think it's crucial to note Clifton's use of colors in this poem and the previous as well. Colors have destroyed this woman's life, and she now sits in a red room drinking black coffee. She sits in a room full of pain and hurt. She sits in red.
Red is used to illustrate a different pain in stanza 110 in "A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon." This is only one of the handful of lines that elude to domestic violence, again the color red being written very purposefully.
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