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
