Hypochondriac
She scours the pages of WebMD
in search of answers
the way the lady at the corner store
reads the horoscopes
in the already yellowing folds of the daily city news.
(She has never seen such a woman
but she imagines
that in some back pocket of the universe,
it must be so).
Wishing fervently
for something to be wrong:
for a place to affix the titular “Disorder”
for a token imbalance to find
(too many? too few?
either/or would do) — if only
to absolve her of herself.
She latches onto the symptoms
like lucky lotto numbers—
her ticket out.