The Other Greek Compound (Cunnilingus)

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
Here on the chalkboard, in this room at 2:30 PM,
72 degrees Fahrenheit, stuffy with the smell of old books
and a half-eaten apple browning on Pemba's desk.
I take the white chalk, gritty between my fingers,
and draw the compound: cunnus plus lingere.
Cunnus, from Latin, the vulva, named in Pompeii's walls,
graffiti scratched in 79 AD, before the ash fell.
Paired with names like Secundus or Chiona, public shames
in crude lines, insults that outlasted the city.

[Chorus]
Cunnilingus, the other Greek compound,
but wait, it's Latin roots twisted into form.
Lingere means to lick, as in lapping water from a stream,
or the tongue tracing letters on stone.
Diagramming here, morphology like a map:
root to suffix, -us to -lingus, bound in silence.
The class holds breath, Mrs. Patterson at the door,
her resignation slip dated today, April 15th, 2023.


[Verse 2]
William Smith, born 1813, died 1893,
wrote in his dictionary, 1875 edition,
terms of antiquity carry layers, cultural weights.
Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, 1879,
detailed cunnus in Oxford's Clarendon Press,
vulgar in Catullus, satirical in Martial.
But the women's voices? The scribes unnamed,
their slang lost, gaps in the record like erased chalk.
Feel the residue on my skin, dry and powdery,
as I connect the lines: noun plus verb, act unnamed.

[Bridge]
Small strange fact: in Pompeii's ruins,
cunnus scrawled with drawings, lewd humor enduring.
No vehicles here, just the pointer in my hand,
tapping the board, echoing in this dim light.
The window lets in pale sun, warming the eraser,
dusted white, ready to wipe but not forget.


[Verse 3]
The root lingere branches to lingus, the action,
clinical now, but once whispered under arches.
Mrs. Patterson leaves, her chair scraping wood,
resigning for the day, but she'll return tomorrow.
The lexicon on the desk, thick and worn,
holds the shame built in, but I diagram without it.

[Outro]
Cunnilingus, etched here in chalk,
fading as the bell rings, but the word remains.