Teresa Blankmeyer-Burke – Poetry
Rape in Deaflandia
When you are raped in Deaflandia,
No one hears your screams.
No one hears your pleas:
Two fingered “Nos” snapping thumbs
Pinches air
Challenge
His closed countenance.
no! No! NO!
Invisible razor-edged palm
Slices air
Forced landing
Touchdown
On supplicant hand.
stop! Stop! STOP!
When you are raped in Deaflandia
Silent word-wounds
Mute your heart.
* * *
Teresa Blankmeyer Burke, Ph.D. is a deaf philosopher and bioethicist in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Gallaudet University, where she teaches philosophy in American Sign Language and English. Her current research focuses on philosophy of disability, Deaf philosophy and bioethics (in particular, ethics of genetics and emerging technologies). An alumna of Mills College and the University of New Mexico, she is the first signing deaf woman to obtain a Ph.D. in philosophy in the world. Teresa maintains two blogs on very different cultural communities: she blogs as Barelas Babe for Duke City Fix, an Albuquerque arts, politics, and culture blog, and is a featured blogger for DeafEcho, a blog about Deaf culture. Her publications cover a wide range of genres, including peer-reviewed scholarship in philosophy and bioethics, journalism, and creative nonfiction. She divides her time between Washington DC and the historic neighborhood of Barelas in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and is currently working on a memoir about her years as a young widow and single mother in Cody, Wyoming.
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