Beauty: To Do

Catherine Wing

10:00, 3:00, 7:00, feed the dragon.
Practice happy face, smile, no ugh.
Please march, as the drum bangs on.

For the garden, salt on the slugs,
And only Sundays to slack off.
Be, Beauty, Be! Don't lurk.

Remember B-12 for agony,
B-6 and C in case of heart ruckus.
Don't mention 100 years slumber, the rape, again.

Wipe your feet after trekking in briar muck.
Catch up with your lag.
Revitalize your too-tired luck.

Be charming to guests until they are gone.
In case of fire, call for a fire truck.
When the Prince is around, make sure to be on.




2007: "As She Has Been Taught" by Mekeel McBride

Comments for the Czarina

Catherine Wing (2005)

That night even the moon was living
in a puddle, milky, watered-down
version of nightscape, flapping
its wings on the margins of murk.

Someone somewhere was
speaking of Cary Grant
in a restaurant dressed in voodoo lilies:
Vietnamese to L'Orangerie.

"Well," said our river-pirate, currently
writing a survival guide to small engines,
"It won't always be like buckshot
dropping in a bucket."

Meanwhile, a ways back
in the same line, a man was facing
a long commute in colloquial Bulgarian,
this rocket scientist with a

Wall Street focus to whom
someone was whispering, "Excuse me,
do you know the way
to the rickshaw dealership?"

Then five minutes of weather
and the melody of maritime
tragedy on the radio as
the clever-jack-chronicler,

who believes there is no such thing
to which everything corresponds,
cries out in his sleep,
"forbici, forbici, forbici."

Tell Them

Catherine Wing (2005)
in response to John Stammers

Tell them all what you have done:
tell the sea and tell the sun;
the riptide as it carries off a child;
the weather, whether calm or wild;
gas attendants; postal clerks;
the priest; the president; the soda jerk.
Confess it quietly to recycling bins;
tell the sardines in their sardine tins.
Announce it to the media; swear it at the bar;
browse it in the library and translate near and far.
Declare it at the altar or on the witness stand.
Gather up your words and put them in your hands.
Watch them curse and chatter, break and betray.
They are no good at talking, no matter what they say.