The Word the Latin Took for Joining (Coitus)

Lyrics

[Intro]
In the classroom at 9:00 AM, chalk dust settles.
The board is black, waiting for the verb.

[Verse 1]
Coitus, from the Latin coire, to go together.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106 BCE to 43 BCE,
used words like it in his Paradoxa Stoicorum,
saying, Nihil est tam incredibile quod non dicendo fiat probabile.
There is nothing so unbelievable that it cannot be made probable by saying it.
I tap the pointer on the board, co-i-tus,
syllables neutral as the room's 68 degrees Fahrenheit.

[Chorus]
Pure neutrality, the joining.
No shame in the root, just the coming together.
In Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia, circa 77 CE,
animal unions described without flourish.
Coitus, the verb the Latin took.

[Verse 2]
In a Roman scriptorium, 50 CE, spring morning,
quill scratches on parchment at 55 degrees,
smell of olive oil lamps and stone walls.
The Oxford Latin Dictionary, 1968, Oxford University Press,
defines it: a coming together, meeting; sexual intercourse.
I diagram the root on the whiteboard,
marker squeaking faintly, no emotion attached.

[Bridge]
Strange, how in medieval texts, coitus meant the union of metals,
gold and mercury marrying in the heat,
a metaphorical extension, alchemists seeking transformation.
But here, in biology, it's just the fact.
The unnamed Roman schoolchildren, their reactions lost,
women in medical texts, voices absent.

[Verse 3]
The Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, open on the desk,
marginalia in faded ink from some scribe's hand.
Coire, to bind, no vulgar edge.
I deliver the lesson, pure as chalk on slate.

[Outro]
The word persists, neutral in the air.
Class dismissed at 9:20 AM.