Helpless laughter

TRAWLing through the death notices, I’m seized with a
SPASM, my legs won’t hold me, I’m feeling
SHAKY all over, and giggling begins to bubble up. Very
PICKY, normally, about what I read in the paper
OWING to the way disasters, violent offenders, murderers
LEVER me, for some unknown reason, into helpless
LAUGHter. It’s a psychic-physiological thing.
HOMER cracks me up, his Iliad seems a farce. Once-
EASELled savage paintings by Goya and Munch, or the thought of a still-
BIRTH, reduce me to whoops of hilarity, the tragic made comic. You’re
BIGOTed about me but I can’t help it. I hate it that bad news is in
AMPLE supply. Here, for example, unexpected, is my father’s obituary.