In Order to Forget

By Ricki Mandeville

Scour libraries, surf the web,
google how to forget.
Monitor your heart, trust
your intuition, ask an old friend.
Eat dark chocolate.

Drink wine but do not light candles.
Realize finally that no dusty tome,
no almanac, no chapter heading, index,
contents page, no link, no website,
no image flickering through cyberspace,
no download, you tube, forward,
no sage advice, no sisterly arm
no sudden insight, no sly sleuthing

does the trick, yields up the secret:
how to forget the ocean taste of his mouth,
how to forget that you reserved nothing,
allowed your thin veneer of caution
to craze, then fall away.

Wait it out in the event that the stone
of his heart, eroded to grit
and whisked away by wind,
becomes, again, flesh.
That the fool stumbles back
and finds you sitting here,
the other Adirondack chair empty beside you.