Jillian Weise
How the Dumb Were Granted the Right to Have Sex
"1575--Lasso, a Spanish lawyer,
concluded that those who learn to speak are no longer dumb and should have rights to progeniture."
–Disability
History Timeline
"Mujer muda, mujer estupida,"
the merchant said, while the
woman shook
her head, waved her hands
and the customers continued, "Cuanto?"
Lasso stepped between merchant
and woman,
took her hand in his,
led her past the cathedral, the
fountains,
and into the arch of his home.
Let’s say
her mouth was stained black
from berries and he kissed her
under gargoyles.
How did he bring her to speech?
Not a kiss,
a kiss alone would not
unlock twenty years of silence
mistaken
for insolence. He ordered
chocolate
in bottles, and when
she drank, still no sound.
Lasso’s maid
was first to hear the mute
woman speak.
in midafternoon.
From inside the bedroom, a high
voice,
full of vibrato, reaching for
vowels,
insisting, "Más, más."
Jillian Weise's work appears in The Atlantic Monthly,
Chelsea, Salt Hill and others. She's the Fred Chappell Fellow
at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the recipient of an
Academy of American Poets award from Florida State University. |