Pacifier

   For Wordsworth, it was fields of trembling
daffodils, a steady wind coming

off the lake. For Isaac, my two-year-old,
   it’s a passy the colors of Ronald

   McDonald, it’s what I took away
and replaced with words for loss: Can you say

gone, Isaac, all gone? With scissors I cut
   the nipple off. He said nothing but

   —passy? His countenance fell. He sighed
and tried to mend the thing, but failing, cried.

I can sympathize. We’ve gone from
   sweet, clear milk to simply numb

   replacements, haven’t we, Isaac? 
We’re older now. We need to sac-

   rifice the toys that help us sleep. But sleep is
hard enough without another absence—

   we’re lost in darkness, our mouths shut
around a missing word. What is it

   we’re trying to say? A steady
voice cried and cried that night, Dad? Daddy?

   Passy? the maudlin vowels drawn out
calling that plastic pet into his mouth

   where it could curl in place of a word.
Dad? Daddy? What is it I wanted

to say? Something about daffodils, something
   warm, about Wordsworth, about trembling.

Touching, isn’t it, the way we suck
   on what we’d never swallow? I broke

down the next day and bought a new passy,
   this one gold and green. At last he

stopped crying, and took a long, shaky
   breath that emptied me.