Disability Studies Quarterly
Fall 2005, Volume 25, No. 4
<www.dsq-sds.org>
Copyright 2005 by the Society
for Disability Studies



Stealing Yeses

Nancy Scott
Email: nanscot9073@yahoo.com


My hands are cramped
from pushing your wheelchair
on the Wildwood boardwalk
without my white cane.

Your talk guides me
over vibrating grooves
through a sea of late-season tourists
that parts for your "forward,
left, right, clear"
and "oh-shit-stop."

I stop better than I steer,
but we need this risk,
you looking up to say where we go,
me listening to push or hold back.

The shopkeepers know
we will buy souvenirs-
A heart-shaped cherry box
with one unsanded inner corner,
seashell wind chimes,
soapstone dinosaurs,
half-price Peruvian sweaters,
statues of pilgrims.