Howard Firkin
You only know you’ve got it when your brain
starts turning these unnecessary tricks.
At first you pause and blink and look again
and try denial till at last it clicks:
you’ve got twelve months of madness left to live.
It could be worse. You’ve got more time to kill than
you might; so live the remnant to the max.
Try not to think about it while you still can.
Who needs a mind in order to relax?
Not even God needs reason to forgive.

I only wish my brain had been a jellyfish
to start with, drifting through the endless seas;
a scrap of living in a petrie dish,
unknowing any but its own disease.