Jason Shinder

A J T

At Sunset

Your death must be loved this much.

You have to know the grief — now.
Standing by the water’ s edge,

looking down at the wave

touching you. You have to lie,
stiff, arms folded, on a heap of earth

and see how far the darkness

will take you. I mean it, this, now —
before the ghost the cold leaves

in your breath, rises;

before the toes are put together
inside the shoes. There it is — the goddamn

orange-going-into-rose descending

circle of beauty and time.
You have nothing to be sad about.