For a Friend Confined to as Wheelchair at Thirteen
Life is a circle
Of cycles of rounds
Of round and round,
And Oh, I didn’t know,
Does it hurt—
Only when I
Laugh.
Round, round,
Get around,
I get around.
Life’s a beach
And I’m a beachgirl.
It stretches around
A body of water,
Encircles a microcosm,
An ecosystem—
It all comes around.
It’s an equation.
Each side says “Drink Me”:
One side gets smaller,
The other grows.
What’s subtracted from one
Is added to the other.
Don’t believe there can be
No compensation for
Gross injustice.
We compensate ourselves.
We who have lost so much
Will gain it back.
We’ll grow up fast.
We’ll grow strong.
We’ll grow wise.
And by tomorrow we’ll
Have grown to such
Heroic proportions
That you won’t even know
We’re around.
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Comments: 11
This was a girl, fifteen at the time, whom I met while observing a class at an alternative high school in Ann Arbor. She was abolutely remarkable. She had both legs amputated above the knee and had had throat cancer so had a mechanical voice box. She had every reason to be gloomy, yet she appeared to be happy and, yes, matter-of-fact. She participated unreservedly in this free-style English class. I was blown away. No, I never showed her this poem.