Hal Sirowitz

A STRANGE NAME FOR HOPE

Azilect. What's in a name?
Plenty if your neurologist

prescribed it as the best hope
for slowing your Parkinson's.

If death is the only cure for life,
then give me more life. The good

thing about having Parkinson's is
you don't actually see your symptoms

becoming worst. You stay the same
until you drop to the next level. You

don't see yourself dropping. You only
see your attempts to stay where you were.

You become on friendlier terms with your
own death. Unlike Dylan Thomas' advice

in the poem to his father – "Rage against
the dying of the light" – you're not into raging.

You're curious how you'll react, like
a scientist using himself for the experiment.

Hal Sirowitz the author of four collections of poetry commencing with Mother Said, followed by My Therapist Said (Crown). Fifteen years ago he was diagnosed with early onset Parkinson's Disease. He has performed all over the world and on NPR's All Things Considered and Fresh Air, MTV's Spoken Word Unplugged, and PBS's Poetry Heaven. He is in many anthologies, including Billy Collin's Poetry 180, and Garrison Keillor's Good Poems. He is a past poet laureate of Queens, New York.