Liz Whiteacre
THE CAMPUS WHEELCHAIR PROJECT POEMS
For this project, Lyn Jones of Ball State University offered me interview transcripts from the study
"Pre-Enrollment Considerations of Undergraduate Wheelchair Users and their Post-Enrollment Transitions,"
published in The Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability which she authored with Roger D. Wessel,
Christina L. Blanch, and Larry Markle. I used the interviews, notes from a focus group discussion, the article, and research I conducted about
the injuries and diseases discussed by the participants as prompts for persona poems. I was also able to draw
upon the experiences I've had with spinal injury and teaching students transitioning from high school to college,
since I've taught Freshman composition at various schools since 2002. The poems below were inspired by transcript
of a student who has muscular dystrophy.
Project Challenge
Before this chair, I knew. I had just started
with greatest common factors and fractions
as mom talked with doctors about my muscles
deteriorating times two.
The remainder
in gym class when kids picked teams,
my legs were not quick enough, but my brain too quick.
In Project Challenge, I crossed my legs gingerly,
leaned close to listen to the lady talking
about what could be. Dividing
my time between therapy and homework,
I could push my brain towards a campus,
beyond the boundaries of that elementary
school, past puberty, to a place where
I could be an engineer.
An engineer building things, things
which wheels would glide by. Obstacles
of concrete, steel, ego, stereotype passed
quickly. Before this chair, I knew. They knew.
I could solve problems. Get the answers I wanted.
* * *
Settling
Back when I stacked bright blocks, I wanted to be an architect—when my steady
fingers molded tall towers, when I sat cross-legged on the carpet, and mom
snapped pictures of of primary coliseums and Lincoln-log cafes. But like any
boy who pays attention to talk around the table, I learned engineering
was where the big money was. And, high school found me
thumbing college catalogues that promised high tech programs.
Getting in was no problem. Getting there was tough. Tackling
the unforgiving curbs, narrow doorways, insensitive shower
stalls were not so bad as weaving my head to glimpse
the cafeteria set up, the engineering labs, the library
between potential freshmen's bags and their parents' hips.
Mom bit her lip when we spoke with disability
services people who shrugged like what-are-you-
going-to-do? when they couldn't answer my
questions about adaptive technologies
or 24-hour aide support. Like, what
was I going to do? But drive
in silence back to home
and pick a new major
at another school
that could let me
be me, just not
engineer me,
but maybe,
this me,
could
work.
* * *
Power Soccer
It's the only
game where
not everybody wins,
not everybody feels good,
not everybody gets to play.
It's the only
game where
they don't let more than 8
play, because 4 on 4 gets rough.
Players don't forgive, don't always play nice.
It's the only
game where
people in power chairs can be
vicious, smacking the larger ball
as they whip 'round on their wheels.
It's the only
game where
fans cheer when foot guards
clash and refs blow whistle-warnings
and coaches scream advice.
It's the only
game where
strategy fuels adrenaline-soaked
bodies that push beyond straps and metal
to propel butyl into goals like anybody else.
It's the only
competitive game
you can play in a power chair.
* * *
It Must Be Hard to Have Sex in a Wheelchair
she says, her voice raising, a little, like she might actually be asking—and I think of the aide whose
name I haven't learned dozing in my dorm room, ready to help me dress for bed, the man who will be there if I wake
and have to pee. I have to ask him for help, raise my voice in the dark, until, groggy he slides his arms beneath
my sweaty pits and helps hoist me to my chair. It's better than the super-helpful-one who shakes me awake when my
dreams get loud, when I don't want to be patted on the shoulder by a woman who's not my mother. I know them, but
I can't name them: these who lay quiet when they hear the rub of skin, my quiet sigh, the release of lonely. So
many hands upon me every day, all but the ones I want. She's turned her pretty head back toward the bowling lane,
laughing at the gutter ball. I don't know if she hears me. Yeah. Yeah, it's hard.
* * *
Homecoming
It's not far from campus, home, with its ADA compliant
doorways and shower stall.
My room,
tucked behind the kitchen,
smells of the spaghetti Mom must have made last night.
She's busy with my bag,
unzipping,
banging drawers, saying she's so happy
to have me home for Christmas. All the cousins
come here, because it's easier for mom,
for everyone, especially since Grandma
passed and I got the power chair. I cruise
to my dresser to check old photos
of Ben and Mike goofing behind me, elbows resting
on my handles. Mike called, Mom says,
and we think next Tuesday will work–and then the logistics
of getting me to a place my friends
can meet me, because here at home,
I can't just power myself down the street to get pizza,
because at home, the living room is cramped,
because at home, everybody's always busy,
so I do what I can, on my own.
* * *
Mother's Day Card
None of these cards are right,
and Mother's Day is next week.
I power pass dumb cartoons telling mom
she's the best and lame flowers
with long poems I would never write.
The blank cards offer a black and white
photo of a 50's mom bending toward a little boy
who's building a tower with grey
blocks. It's the one, but I don't know
how to fill its white page,
how to tell her thank you for dressing
my man-body, for wiping
my butt, for blowing out her knee in August
helping me into my chair,
how to tell her I'm glad I've been at campus
and she can sleep
through the night, that I don't need her
like that any more,
but that she's the only one who knows
how to do things right—
I don't know how to fit that in the white spaces
between Happy Mother's Day.
Liz Whiteacre teaches creative writing at teaches writing at the University of Indianapolis. She is the author
of Hit the Ground (Finishing Line Press)
and co-editor of the anthology
Monday Coffee & Other Stories of Mothering Children with Special Needs (INwords Press). Her poems have appeared in Wordgathering,
Disability Studies Quarterly, The Healing Muse, Breath and Shadow, and other magazines.
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