The Poet asked me what the wheelchair symbolized
by Alyssa Radtke
The wheelchair is not a figure of speech.
Walking is—
unless it’s Friday
because my parents know me as a
supported biped—
but when I walk to the library after class,
I’m sitting down.
I don’t use crutches
(they are called canes),
but I use wheelchairs as a crutch,
in the writing sense
because the universal symbol
of access is a wheelchair with a head;
mind and movement without body—
confined freedom,
poetry.