Pop Off

It's three hours before work
on a Monday morning
and I have given myself over
to the labor of crafting homemade
popover batter from hand-fed sourdough
and then preheating the oven to a high heat
for an hour to get the cast iron just-so.

And as time is wont to do, it sprints
and now I need my pre-office shower
but my popovers need twenty-eight minutes 
in the oven ahead of them.

I call upstairs, to my slumbering teen.
"Are you awake?" YEAH
"Can you help me?" WHY
"Please I need your help" UGH WHAT
"Are you really awake? 
"I'm setting a timer;
"Come change the oven when the timer goes off"
OKAYGOD!UGHOKAYDUHYEAH

I pause, hand on the bannister.
"You are really truly awake, right? 
"I need to shower. 
"Please turn the oven down to three-fifty when the timer goes off."
MOM DUH YEAH GO AWAY

I enter the bathroom, 
turn off the Big Lights
dial down the incandescent sconces 
put on a soothing instrumental station
and loose myself in the spalike calm.

I turn off the water, 
mute the music, and
my ears fill with the wails
of a bleating timer.
My previously warm and flowing blood 
chills, thickening at the sound. 

"WHAT ALARM IS THAT!" I yell out.
"HELLOOOOO???? Which timer?"
I descend the stairs, 
heels leaving wet marks on the risers.

Turning the corner into the kitchen, 
the charcoal-hued air tells me 
it's the timer I set, 
not the one she was to, 
after turning down the heat.

I grab the silicone mitts, grit my teeth.
As I wrestle the door down, 
greasy smoke pours out and up into my face.
I retrieve the Lodge muffin pan, 
see New Moons shining up at me.

"KID! SERIOUSLY! YOU HAD ONE JOB!" 
WHAT NO ALARM WENT OFF CHILL OUT

"FUCK!" I holler up the stairs, charitably.
UGH she replies. RE-LAAAX.

"Well Monday is ruined!" I reason.

I leave the charred carnage 
next to the careful note 
I'd left with explicit directions 
to ensure breakfast success.

I stomp to my room, dry heave with rage, 
while I pick out a staid banker stripe tailored shirt 
pair it with summer navy trousers 
and pull a cool white leather sneaker. 

"I CAN'T BELIEVE I TRUSTED YOU" I resume.
"ALL I WANTED WAS TO MAKE BREAKFAST BEAUTIFUL."
"WHY CAN'T I TRUST YOU JUST ONCE"

At this, she emerges from her lair,
face set in nonchalance 
(she continues to opt-in for violence).
MOM. She starts. It's JUST popovers.
No big deal.

My eyes grow round and black, 
like hockey pucks left for dead on the stovetop.
"I tried to make your summer Monday special" 
I squeeze these syllables out, 
with that liquid nitrogen turn
I'd learned from female relatives.

THEY'RE FINE.
She walks to the stove, 
picks up a charcoal briquette; 
her lips curl; she crunches down. 
She moves her mouth around 
what sounds like pebbles,
and MMMing for emphasis.
THEY'RE GOOD! She presses, doubling down.
Crispy...and crunchy, she finishes, 
her voice descending a few decibels. 

"Pop Off, then," I mutter,
just loud enough to linger in the air, 
syllables and incinerated sourdough 
settling like carcinogens between us.

Popped-off Popovers.
This is Monday.
This is Mothering.
This is Teening.
Peak Pique.