The Italian painter Ernesto once had

An embarrassing problem that made him quite sad:

When to pick up an order a customer came,

He ne’er could remember the customer’s name.

His friends offered sympathy, pizza, and wine;

The crestfallen painter had no urge to dine.

Sensing an impasse, his best friend Odestian

Lucidly spoke this mnemonic suggestion:

"If you have a client whose name is McGee,

Draw quickly a small, inconspicuous bee

In the lower right corner, right next to your name.

Mutatis mutandis, do always the same."

"Well, this," said the painter with gesticulation,

"Puts all in a different hue or gradation.

It’s now ineluctably tied to my ken;

I’ll use my new talent again and again."

His next couple clients were Bauer and Mauer;

On each of their paintings he painted a flower.

Alas, he lost track of which work went to whom,

And, presto, Ernesto relapsed into gloom.