These poems are published as part of the Amplifying Disabled Voices special section, selected by editors Christopher Heuer, Marlena Chertock, and Gregory Luce.
 

& Before I Arrived At After

I didn’t know,
you were their safety net;

I was
a non-entity,

Your something to be crafted
into a what

They could
handle;

And when you left
your body,

Mine loomed large
required duty;

Denial whispered in darkness
assumed I couldn’t hear

Don’t invite
her,

Shine in their
eyes;

Supposed I couldn’t
see

Who’s she gonna
ask,

In the thin-lipped
silence;

Of my
questions,

Left
hanging;

Now,
I know,

You protected
me.
_{-For my Daddy, John, father of a daughter living with quadriplegia and cerebral palsy}

Until Now, I’ve Never Written A Poem That Had To Be Redacted

What happened?

I ordered shower chair wheels
from a service rep named Marta,

On backorder,
my wheels were canceled,
called back and reordered;

Front to left,
right to back,

That’s what the invoice
should have said;

Instead, my inbox opened to a (redacted here)
county Summons, in a West Coast (redacted here)
state court by (redacted here) officials for (redacted here) offences;

Failure to appear
would result in an arrest;

To take place at a
(redacted here) location…

When I rang the only number in sight,
Marta answered and my recorded findings
unwittingly caused Marta to audibly redact her own chewing gum;

Only then did recognition
pierce my unheard thoughts;

Marta’s unauthorized at-work interweb interests
attached themselves to my in-route wheels;

And her job spun on the line
between hushed recoil and what could not be rescinded.

Kristie L. Williams is a quadriplegic living with cerebral palsy. Her debut chapbook, Finding Her, was published in 2022 by Finishing Line Press. Her poetry is also published in Cairn, Main Street Rag, Dan River Review, Hermit Feathers Review, Heron Clan, Madness Muse Press, Snapdragon, Big City Lit, Nostos, Does It Have Pockets, Maximum Tilt Solstice Anthology, Fixed and Free Quarterly, Artemis, Chiron Review and The Poetry Society of Virginia Centennial Anniversary Anthology of Poems. She is a 2022 Pushcart nominee and a 2022 and 2025 Best of the Net nominee. Williams received an MA Ed. in Adult Education and taught for 12 years in the North Carolina Community College System. She uses her own story of quadriplegia and cerebral palsy to advocate for herself and others with disabilities. Williams considers her work as ‘disability adjacent’, because although it shapes the context of her work cerebral palsy does not overshadow the arc of her story. When she’s not playing with words, Williams is participating in adaptive recreation, creating mixed media art, reading great books, and going to rock concerts. Her website is: kristielwilliams.com

Featured image in this post is, “Redacted page 53 of Mueller report”, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.