How do you pack up an entire life,

and fast—say you only have three months,

what the hell are you supposed to do

about all the things in life you never got?

I'm not talking about the trip to Rome

or the great American novel you never wrote.

This is about that vague sense that things

were always on the verge of getting better.

Yet now that you're nearing the finish line

there's a backwards logic to it all:

all those years waiting for something,

but in the end finding there was nothing

except lying alone in a cold hospital bed.

You could throw in the towel and call for God—

or accept things exactly as they are, not

eating, not speaking or even really sleeping,

but lying there in a kind of terrible waiting

for your last working organ to finally quit.