{"id":2282,"date":"2026-07-27T14:20:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T14:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=2282"},"modified":"2026-08-01T16:32:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T16:32:30","slug":"pop-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=2282","title":{"rendered":"Pop Off"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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<\/em>
\"Can you help me?\" WHY<\/em>
\"Please I need your help\" UGH WHAT<\/em>
\"Are you really awake? 
\"I'm setting a timer;
\"Come change the oven when the timer goes off\"
OKAYGOD!UGHOKAYDUHYEAH<\/em>

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<\/em>

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<\/em>

\"FUCK!\" I holler up the stairs, charitably.
UGH <\/em>she replies. RE-LAAAX.<\/em>

\"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<\/em> 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.<\/em> She starts. It's JUST popovers.<\/em>
No big deal.<\/em>

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.<\/em>
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<\/em> for emphasis.
THEY'RE GOOD<\/em>! She presses, doubling down.
Crispy...and crunchy,<\/em> 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.


<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cPop Off,\u201d a Mother-Daughter Monday Mania, written Monday, July 27, 2026 poem 208 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo: “Charcoal is Served,”  by Diana Ludwick \u00a9 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2126,811,311,1439,2145,200,2125,887,2128,1244,2,263,551],"tags":[1838,1558,134],"class_list":["post-2282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-culinary","category-current-events","category-generational","category-geriatric-millennial","category-hormonal-teenage-variant","category-humor","category-insufferable","category-loosely-hinged","category-of-cooking","category-perimenopause","category-poems","category-snarky","category-unserious","tag-high-summer","tag-july","tag-summer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2282"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2302,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2282\/revisions\/2302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}