Hypochondriacal

I thought I was dying but it was nothing.
It seems to be happening more and more often.
It's the kind of nothing that's something

the way a coat hanger swinging
in an empty room you keep coming back to
because you think something is in there, is nothing--

the way a current of air,
or a rise in the wind, or an almost imperceptible
drop in the temperature, is something.

Some things are more themselves than others.
Some are lymphomas, and some are lipomas,
and sometimes all the worrying's for nothing--

the fasting, the testing, the blood-work and x-rays,
and invasive, exploratory, tortuous, torturous
procedures turn up nothing. Something

poetic about a lifetime of saying
you're dying. Something hyperbolic.
Something metaphoric. Nothing
like a good metaphor for saying what something's like.

(Previously appeared in The Barefoot Muse)


Paul Hostovsky's poems have won a Pushcart Prize, the Muriel Craft Bailey Award from the Comstock Review, and chapbook contests from Grayson Books, Riverstone Press, and the Frank Cat Press. His first full-length collection, Bending the Notes, is available from Main Street Rag. Visit his website at: www.paulhostovsky.com