bOOTBLACK bLACK*

Black coffee blackens the stomach, blackstrap molasses black, black as the long night of the soul, bootblack black, blacker than blackened black, black. Another word stripped of its meaning, a tropism without a trope, a semantic stifling; syntactical censoriousness. I once owned, though my parent’s bought them for me, a pair of bootblack Oxford shoes with black laces and black soles. I remember how the sand and salt, left over from winter’s chill, crunched beneath my shoes as I walked scurrying to school, my books tied in a bundle on my back, bootblack back. I beat up a guy who tried to beat up my brother, who in turn beat up another guy for simply standing there watching. Some days are longer than others, bootblackedened and blackstrapped, blacker than black, blacker than the long night of the soul, that black, black.