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# Pop Off
- URL: https://dianaludwick.com/pop-off/
- Published: 2026-07-27T14:20:15.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-27T14:20:15.000Z
- Description: “Pop Off,” 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 © 2026.
- Author: Diana Ludwick
- Tags: 2026 Poetry Challenge, Culinary, Current Events, Generational, Geriatric Millennial, Hormonal - Teenage variant, Humor, Insufferable, Loosely Hinged, Of Cooking, Perimenopause, Poems, Snarky, Unserious, High Summer, July, Summer, #Migrated-1792872215677, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-10-24 20:03

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.