asternal

(It was allegedly a Seminole who told a land surveyor in the 1850s that the name of the river was Myakka, although it shows up as the Asternal River on English maps prior to 1850.)

In just half a page, Perry chronicles life and death as students dissect a body in "Gross Anatomy on Her Birthday." This poem opens with an image of an asternal rib and how it "sounds like ribs connected / to stars." The poet talks about how the students are not supposed to "humanize the corpse," and yet the speaker can't help but wonder how this corpse broke its leg in a fall from a horse or about the "gentler younger hands that loved these breasts." As the speaker studies death, life radiates from the poem.

There were 13 pairs of ribs; the first seven pairs were sternal (costae verae) and the remaining six pairs were asternal (costae spuriae) of which the last 2-3 pairs were floating ribs (costae fluctuantes) having no distinct attachment to the costal arch.