The Greek Compound for the Practice (Fellatio)

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
In this classroom, September 15th, 9:30 AM,
chalk dust hangs like Pompeii ash,
I stand at the blackboard, piece of white chalk in hand,
from the box dated 1952, Faber-Castell,
and I write: fellare plus -atio.
Latin verb, to suck, from Indo-European roots,
like a nursling at the breast, circa 84 BC.
Gaius Valerius Catullus knew it,
in Poem 16, he spat: Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo.
The class is dead silent, pencils frozen.

[Chorus]
Fellatio, the compound act,
derived in stone, in graffiti walls of Pompeii, 79 AD,
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Volume IV,
Prussian Academy notes the scrawl: fellator with a price.
Pemba scribbles in his notebook, spiral-bound, college-ruled,
his pencil, Dixon Ticonderoga, No. 2, sharpens the silence.

[Verse 2]
Marcus Valerius Martialis, 38 AD to 104,
in Epigrams 11.25, Loeb edition 1993,
wrote: Mentula cum doleat puero, tibi, Naeuole, culus.
The suffix -atio makes it process, act of sucking,
not the doer, not the thing, but the doing itself.
Blackboard slate from Vermont quarries, 1801 patent,
eraser cloth nearby, wool felt, but I don't wipe yet.
The draft from the window, 15 degrees Celsius,
carries the must of old books, Lewis and Short dictionary, 1879.

[Chorus]
Fellatio, the derivational twist,
from Catullus's rage to Martial's satire,
translated by Shackleton Bailey, Harvard Press.
Pemba nods, his notes filling page 47,
the class breathes shallow, eyes on the diagram.

[Bridge]
But the voices missing: the women of Rome, the enslaved,
no letters from them, no graffiti in their hand,
only the elite men's ink, papyrus scrolls in Perseus Library.
What did they call it in whispers, under fornix arches?
The blackboard holds the gap, chalk line broken.

[Verse 3]
Here in our room, with desks from 1920s oak,
initials carved: J.M. 1942, hearts and arrows,
I underline the root: fell-, suck, nurse, draw.
Morphology lesson, derivational,
the act preserved in lava, in verse, in silence now.

[Outro]
Fellatio, etched on the board, September light slanting.
Class ends at 10:00 AM, notes taken, words kept.