my black boots

I’m retiring my black leather boots. Ankle high, round toebox, thick rubber sole. Dark as oil in places. After eight years, worn smooth like slippers, no longer gripping the ground. I bought them on Sixth Ave., around the corner from my grad school professor’s apartment in Chelsea. She was a New Yorker writer for many years, under William Shawn. Rubbed elbows with giants like A.J. Liebling and Joseph Mitchell. My wife and I stayed at her place whenever we visited Manhattan. Back when I was convinced of certain things. That my MFA was a literary achievement. That New York was the answer. My professor once told me about a favorite student who graduated a couple years before I arrived on campus. Daisy was a staggering talent, she said. But went back to the midwest after graduating and was never heard from again, at least not in print. I never saw a picture of Daisy or read any of her work. But in my mind she wore olive green army pants, a patched purple jacket, her straw-colored hair cut short except for sharp bangs that swept across her pudgy face. Her talent kept in a breadbasket on top of the fridge. For a while, I used to hang onto Daisy like a prow, feet dangling above the floodwaters. I’ve since let her go, along with various other fantasies and nightmares. But I'm finding it harder to part with these scratched-up boots. All the roads and sidewalks and puddles and stains and snowbanks they’ve logged. I stare at them while I lace up my brand new Keens. I cast my eyes about the mudroom, then stride toward the two boots. For now, I’ll stand them by the door, side by side, like a pair of gargoyles casting away the rain.