Road Metal

Timothy McBride

       -- for my grandmother, Margaret Kelly 

"You don't need that," she'd tell us when we'd beg 

 Two cents for bubblegum or licorice. 

 A bricklayer's daughter, she'd grown up hard 

 As cement -- never reached 100 pounds, 

 Lived on potatoes and tea, cut her own hair. 

 Husband gone, youngest child killed in the street, 

 She carried a ball peen hammer up her sleeve 

 On the daily walks she made us take all over town, 

 Crossing the river and the canal, circling the miles 

 Of Eastman Kodak's smokestacks, through the invisible 

 Hops-scented cloud of the Genesee Brewery, 

 Past the burned-out storefronts of the '67 riots, 

 Never stopping at the church where the brother 

 She wouldn't speak to, a Catholic priest, 

 Celebrated morning mass. We followed her 

 Through drain pipes and alleys. We crawled under a gap 

 She found in the fence beside the KEEP OUT sign 

 And up onto the tracks of the New York Central Line, 

 Startled when she unclasped (this once) her change purse 

 And gave us each three pennies to lay on the polished rail. 

 When the tank cars and ore jennies had passed, 

 We sifted through the ballast rock 

 She said was called "road metal," excited as prospectors 

 For the ruined and unspendable glints of warm copper 

 Lincoln's face flattened to a smudge 

 Our first lesson in what our city's daily freight 

 Can do to words like "God" and "Trust."