Throwing rocks at the train

I promise that I'll stop mining this vein pretty soon, honest I will, but there's just a lot more there.  I wrote this in part as an assignment for my advanced poetry class online.  

Throwing rocks at the train

Grandpa McMichael is a railroad cop who goes to train wrecks,

gives dollar bills and cigars to hoboes, and makes sure people

don’t steal stuff from boxcars.

He’s taught me that throwing rocks at trains is wrong.

You could damage cars being carried from Detroit, hit a brakeman

standing in a boxcar, or kill a bum just trying to get away to a new life. 

But today, I am alone on my way home from school.  (I spend

a lot of time alone since my dad left home last year.) 

I guess I’m easily tempted, because when I think no one’s looking,

I chuck a chunk of railway rock at a boxcar. 

I can’t believe how loud it is, but

the only witness is the railroad crossing bell.

When I get home, though, Mom simply says,

“The principal called after he saw you throw a rock at the train. 

Your grandfather is on his way over.”

And I know I’m about to die.

Soon, Grandpa is climbing out of his car, still in uniform,

with that huge .38 revolver on his hip.

I’m ready to go to jail, to be stood

against a wall and shot, but instead

he sits down on the whitewashed rock and stands me,

wobbly on my shaking legs, in front of him,

so he can talk to me.

He doesn’t put handcuffs on me. 

He doesn’t even yell, but I do cry,

maybe out of relief that I’m not going to jail,

but beyond that, I don’t know and won’t

until later when I realize that Grandpa

was being a dad to me. 

20 January 2013