Liz Whiteacre
TRASHCAN, UNMOVED
At dawn, I wake alone with a start
…crutch quietly with precision
like my first drive alone in the Escort:
the carpet foreboding as rush hour traffic,
the furniture fierce as intersections,
the tile sneaky as ice. Stepping so gingerly
my brace, sleep sweaty, does not move,
my aluminum crutches lift up and up.
We labor toward the kitchen.
It takes twenty minutes, these twenty odd paces.
All the bags shoved into the ugly black can reek
of decomposed chicken carcass, sanitary
napkins, and other rank food stuffs that
cannot wait until the next collection.
The can's belly is less than the width
of the door, but how to move it?
I can't heave it up and march to the curb.
Not anymore.
It thuds when tapped at its base
by my crutch's toe. It won't budge,
and pain shoots down my back, down my legs.
I live alone. I live alone in an alley
in a shitty apartment.
Two hours until pick up…
two hours to get this can to the curb.
Kicking with foot, shoving with knee, sliding
with chair and crutch, I curse and cry
and pop Vicodin and eat a granola bar.
Frustration floods my pores, the sweet sweat
I remember from childhood when Mom flipped
flash cards for mathematics, sitting parallel
to me on the hard dining room chairs.
The trash can finally looms on the threshold's lip,
ready to stumble down the stairs.
I duct-tape the lid, so it won't spill in flight.
Crutch cocked like shotgun, it leaps toward the
ugly can, launches it with furious chutzpah,
down the steps, and there the ugly can lay, unbroken,
at the bottom. Muscle spasms seize my back.
Spent and beaten, I'm a young woman who witnesses
what random accident can do to flesh and bone,
who is patched together with medications,
elastic, velcro, metal, wires, hope, who's incapable
of domestic chores so simple as taking out the trash.
Later that morning, this young woman crutches
forty minutes from her handicap spot in the closest
parking lot to work, thinking of the trash can,
lying lifeless on its smooth unscuffed belly
on the cracked sidewalk, like the dead kitten
she'd found after school by the curb in front of her home.
She feels her sweaty, chafed armpits moan,
wipes them with paper towel after taking
thirty minutes to pee. Then, she smiles at co-workers,
says, I'm great. Thanks for asking.
* * *
COMPOSITION STUDENTS PITY ME IN ENGLISH 101
All term, I gimp around, first with wires poking
from beneath my sweaters and crutches, then a staid brace
and brown cane, now a flexible brace, which is sweaty and itchy.
I try to make light of my plodding, but their smiles hold pity:
my injury has made them model students.
They even take turns passing Xeroxes and collecting homework unasked.
It's awkward…like the teddy bear a man from the community theater
gave me on Sweetest Day when I was sixteen. I do my best to ignore
these little gifts proffered by unsolicited emotions,
and the students act too, as if they'd pick up dropped chalk for any instructor.
The painful days, I take Valium, and they peer at me
during writing exercises as if they've placed bets on when I'll topple.
The Monday after spring break, I wait for the students, ready
to begin a well-rehearsed discussion of revision. But I'm distracted:
I'm in love and the overhead projector whirs.
Highlighting editing marks on the screen, I'm interrupted
by Brianna in the front row. "Is that a new ring on your finger?" she asks,
loud and enthusiastic as a nervous cheerleader.
My cheeks burn. Flustered. I was told not to talk
about my personal life, but I'm excited and say, "yes."
Immediately, students in the first and second rows nearest the projector
stand and lean, hover like bees admiring the diamonds from Kevin's
grandmother's wedding ring, ooo-ing and ahh-ing like my mother.
"So, what, are you getting married?" Matt asks from the back row.
"Settle down," I say, and they settle into their seats.
They beg for a magical happy-ever-after story
about a young crippled woman who patiently teaches composition.
They've paid attention in literature classes and want to believe in a theme
of marriage + recovery = happiness, so they can believe everything
will turn out well for themselves. And I indulge a little,
joy burning my face, because don't I want to believe that too,
that all my patience and hard work will pay off? Can't the pain go away?
I summarize my surprise proposal in a little Appalachian cabin
high in the mountains…they applaud, like it's the best thing
that's ever happened to me or to them. I hold up my hand to silence
their clapping, say, "let's get back to work."
Liz Whiteacre is an Assistant Professor of
English at Ball State University. She was awarded an Inglis House Poetry Award in 2010 and
the Vesle Fenstermaker Poetry Prize for emerging poets from Indiana University in 2008.
Her work has appeared
in Disabled World, The Prairie Light Review, Disability Studies Quarterly,
and is forthcoming in The Survivor Chronicles.
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