WEBVTT

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This is a poem where you have to
imagine the speaker as a rather

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stuffy boys school
anatomy-- biology teacher,

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really, who's giving
an anatomy lesson.

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And he would like
to be less stuffy.

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He would like to be able to talk
about the body in bodily ways,

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but he is he is somewhat bound
by his training, et cetera.

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So just imagine him that way,
and he's speaking the poem.

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"Anatomy Lesson: A
School for Boys."

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"Here we have the ordinary
wrist between arm and hand.

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A connection as old
but less interesting

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than the clavicle linking
scapula and sternum.

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And here, the joint called
knee in the middle of the leg.

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Femur, tibia,
patella, my students,

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is no Latin double
play combination.

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You must learn to be precise.

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Just as a quadroon is
not fully a Black man,

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and a fingerprint reveals
but is not a fingertip,

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no ankle bone ever
slew a giant or should

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be confused with an ass.

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I mention this because some
of you on the last exam

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wrote you could not tell
the fibula from the truth,

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and though this may have been
a joke, it was a bad joke.

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Evasive, crass like
mistaking the pudenda

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with a place from
which one speaks.

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No more of it please.

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Here we have the anus and its
sphincter-- common sources

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of laughter, I know, but
sophisticated-- capable

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of magic.

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And here the penis, which
you must learn is no weapon.

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The part of your body whose
natural link is outside of it,

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but the vagina is
another class entirely.

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A whole afternoon.

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A lifetime-- sorry, where was I?

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[LAUGHTER]

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Let's move to the thorax--

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that cavity in which
the heart and lungs lie.

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It too is very beautiful.

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A place unto itself
where nighttime is

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perpetual and surgery common.

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Everything is connected
or wishes to be connected.

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I can't stress that enough.

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For tomorrow, read about the
magnificence of the elbow.

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For Thursday, the
nape and the spine.

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It's true.

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People who don't love
animals wash up a little

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too quickly after making love.

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They're expunging ancient
memories of themselves,

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even the smell of fish
rising from the damp hair

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around their genitals
reminds them of something.

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They rush off to bathrooms
and submerge themselves

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until it's all gone.

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When they return, they
are too clean to sleep,

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and neighborhood dogs start to
howl for the bones they have not

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left out."

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