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