Wheelchair Chariot / La Silla
- Ernesto Beckford
- Sep 23
- 2 min read
Wheelchair Chariot
A woman.
No one I would ever know.
An ordinary woman.
An unseen woman
rolling down crooked, clackety sidewalks
near City Hall.
A woman bound to her chair.
Rolling.
In her wheelchair, rolling.
I spot her on my way to work.
My sluggish morning crawl.
Clutching coffee with one hand.
Choking my cellphone with the other.
Dragging my barely woken bones.
I hate my City Hall job—blunt and raw from the grind.
It’s “Mother please” and “Father may I”
all day long: that horrible job.
Blunt and raw.
I will be late again.
Her metal chair sweeps swiftly past me.
Wheels rushing, motor quietly roaring.
The rrrr, the mmmm of electric contraptions.
The wheelchair spinning fast,
faster than my wide, flat feet could ever move.
On any other day, on any other morning,
I would not have noticed her.
I hardly ever look. I rarely ever care.
Except—
I spot a shabby boy riding on the front of her chair,
and off the back, another child,
with the same face, the same scruffy smile.
Her twin sons, I suppose.
I envy the racket the boys make.
Laughing—giggling—shouting.
Their ruckus rising in triadic rhythm.
Rolling, rolling.
Rolling with mother in a chair.
From anonymous, to luminous,
A crippled mother, her wild sons.
Her body, her chair, the stigma.
Rolling, rolling—
the wheelchair chariot.
Ernesto Beckford
September 23, 2025
© Ernesto Beckford 2025
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La Silla
Una madre.
Una madre cualquiera.
Una madre cualquiera en una silla de ruedas.
Una madre cualquiera, en una silla de ruedas, pasando las veredas de la ciudad de Philadelphia.
La veo rumbo a mi oficina.
Camino lento. Llegaré tarde.
No me gusta el trabajo.
La silla de ruedas va rápido. Rápido ruedan las ruedas.
Y no sería tanto ver esa silla carroza si no fuera …
que ….
colgándose al frente y la espalda del aparato van los hijos mellizos de la señora cualquiera
—riendo—gozando—disfrutando
Un momento, no cualquiera —con mamá…
y su silla de ruedas.
Ernesto Beckford
Septiembre 23, 2025
© Ernesto Beckford 2025
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