Of Bottles and Binkies

Hard to tell the real suckers
from the sucked
Parents, pacifiers, or nippled bottles.

Zach’s most pressing philosophical question
these days: “What love I more?
Parent or binky or bah-bah?”

From zero to a hundred
in under three seconds
if he doesn’t get the bah-bah.

Dad’s hand has to stay on top
of the binky (a.k.a dragon appeaser)
to keep it in mouth.
It’s like keeping a lid on a basket,
or a hot coal on the lips of a prophet.

He had us trained.
At 4 a.m. we would rise like corpses
to the crescendoing grunts and squalls
climbing to climactic “wahhhh!”

Now he’s trained.
Been sleeping six hours straight.
Food coma comes on at 11 p.m.
Cooing at 5 a.m.