Know how to forget

                after Baltasar Gracián

To let your sorrows wear you
             like a hair shirt       shake
off       each foulard around your

neck       unwind and fling
            as from a moving car.
Be no Isadora strangled by her

flare. Be bare-necked and do not
             forget to forget.
Though every silver lining has

a cloud       live within the glint of white 
            fire       the swing set in the sunset
the dimple in each smile        embraces

by the silver lake      ocean
            hush of oh so much
so lush.

Credit

Copyright © 2017 Sharon Dolin. Used with permission of the author. This poem originally appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Fall 2017.