Workmanlike but Solid

Any street in St. Louis.
Every Ford ever made.
The fruit and vegetable vendors at the Soulard Market.
An Italian sub from the old neighborhood
smothered with pickles, peppers and onions.
The thick, plain, gold wedding band I once wore.
My grandmother’s sinewy hands, rough, callused
with the grip of a longshoreman.
Dad’s face, the creases and furrows full of coal dust
from years in the mine.
The twin columns of my mother’s heavy, muscular legs,
hard, unyielding, inflexible.