The Wheelchair Lady’s Scream

The Wheelchair Lady down the way

from me at the airport bus stop, bawled:

Hey Sir! Hey! Any cigarettes?

Her raspy, whiskey old voice had force.

I hadn’t, but then she asked for money.

I got up and went down and gave her a five,

then returned to be farther away.

We were just two in the man-made shade.

Pretty soon the bus came along

and the driver got off for a short break.

Hey Sir! Hey! Can you push me?

Her legs were covered by an old coat

That slipped askew, probably for comfort.

Tucson at noon was a hundred degrees

and the coat on her lap for modesty.

Her legs were discolored dark, glassy and sick.

She hadn’t a tooth in her grey head,

but once boarded, got out her make-up

and touched her eyes, her best feature still,

looking into a hand-held mirror.

Secured for the ride and soon to be off,

she got out a piece of processed cheese,

one of those individually wrapped

flat pieces intended for sandwiches,

And smacked and gummed it toward town.

The cheese dispatched, she asked for my phone.

It didn’t seem to provide any answers.

Onward, then, over Tucson’s worst roads.

The whole bus rattling, shaking like Hell,

The Wheelchair Lady let out a yell,

as loud and long as she could sustain:

Ahhhh! and another: Ahhhh!

It was the sort of thing a child might have done

to hear her voice jiggled with everything else,

her personal part in the global disturbance.

Anguished? Joyful? Neutral? God knows.

It proved at least that she was still there,

could shout and be noticed. Other people got on.

She threw me over for a homeless guy,

skinny, young, dirty in extreme, right to the top of his hat.

My hat was better but he acted happy,

laughed and made her laugh without cigarettes.

She had found that out but not asked for money.

Not far from my place he wheeled her off.

It seemed that must have been his stop too.