Expectations

Maybe some day I can fill those shoes,
some day I will make my mother proud,
I will be a doctor, or maybe a lawyer
so my mother can boast about me
to her friends. “Yes – he went to Dartmouth,
he was at the top of his class,
he made the football team,
and had a research grant to find a cure for cancer.”
That's what she'll say, some day,
just watch and see, she'll be the proudest
mother alive. She'll take the #1 Mom
mug out of its dusty corner
and display it on her desk.
She'll have a whole wall
just for the newspaper clippings about me.
Maybe some day I can fill those shoes.