Tonight's Poet Corner: Bland Expectations

Bland Expectations
by Belinda Roddie

My father wanted me to be a doctor,
just like his father, who secretly wished
he could be an astronaut, just like his
brother, who had a hankering to try out the
culinary arts, just like his cousin,
who while stirring sauce dreamed of stirring up
the hearts of dames as a jazz singer instead,
just like his mother, who had married a man
but had fallen in love with a woman, just like
her best friend, who heavily considered becoming
a nun, just like her teacher, who prayed to God
for a boat to sail in, just like her father,
who got up every morning, sucked in the
sea spray through one nostril, and thought,
"You know, maybe I ought
to have been a doctor."