Mother And Child Poem by michael hogan

Every daughter I know seeks to grow
beyond the mother.
"I will never be like her, " they say.
In my classes the girl in the back row
unremarkable except for the quick flash
of her eyes when a boy teases
is replicated exactly at Parent's Night
by a middle aged woman in blue.
My wife who says (and I agree)
that she is "nothing like" her mother
will organize around her will whole battalions
with the same inflexible force of that maligned parent.
Even myself so distant from mine by geography and time
return home only to find
her cash stashed in the bottom desk drawer where I hide mine
and her wry movement of distaste
at an unwelcome phone call
mirrored by my own
her quick rebuke to the politician on TV
anticipating mine.


I have seen it often enough to know:
there is no mistake.
The mother we seek to escape
shines though our slightest gesture
unwitting, pungent as garlic
hard as bone.