Homage to Elizabeth Bishop
I would like to write what they call a sestina
and fashion it just so, so that it rhymes.
Now how should I rhyme the first line…with Regina?
“Medina,” I think, would lead me too far astray.
Regina, I suppose, will do just fine.
This all must seem silly to you, but it’s the way
you do things if you want to write a sestina.
There’s no need to think too long or too fine;
for, as a method, it amounts to just a way
of putting together a gift for Regina,
or for another, maybe, whose name rhymes
with “stingray” or “vinyl” – or even for a stray
cat that belongs to that fine girl Regina,
who wants her rhymes not to be led astray
and curtailed less than half-way through a sestina.
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