The Anatomical-Latin (Gluteus)

Lyrics

The clock on the wall says one-thirty.
Weak autumn light through the tall window.
It smells of chalk dust and old paper.

Page three hundred and twelve.
Anatomia Humana.
Mister Henry Gray, London, 1858.
He begins with the Greek.
*Gloutos*.
Simply, the buttock.
Galen of Pergamon knew it.
The broad, thick muscle.
Suited for support.
For sitting.
For standing.

Three layers.
One region.
Gluteus maximus.
Gluteus medius.
Gluteus minimus.
Take your notes, please.

I will draw it for you.
See here, the most superficial.
The largest of the three.
This is the maximus.
It allows for hip extension.
Without it, we could not rise from a chair.
It is an engine.

Three layers.
One region.
Gluteus maximus.
Gluteus medius.
Gluteus minimus.
The diagram is on the board.

There was a term, briefly, in the seventeenth century.
Not from Gray, not from Galen.
An obscure text.
They called it the muscle of modesty.
*Musculus verecundiae*.
Because it covers the pelvic girdle.
The name did not persist.
Shame is not a precise anatomical coordinate.

Three layers.
One region.
Gluteus maximus.
Gluteus medius.
Gluteus minimus.
The terms are purely Latin.

The dust settles on the desk.
On the stale biscuit in the tin plate.
The diagram is finished.
You may copy it down.