Operation Teddy Bear

It must all be done in secret,

late at night, the prized object

pried from the arms that clutch it in sleep.

For months you've noticed how abject

he looks, sitting on the sofa

with his head resting on his hips,

his torso shrunken to nothing,

as if love were a kind of hardship

leading to physical starvation.

His fur too looks diseased,

worn away in patches. But nothing

can be done about these-

nor about his eyes, clouded and cracked

as if from glaucoma or cataracts.

Don't look into them now or

you may lose your resolve to act.

Instead, turn the animal face down

on the kitchen counter and try

to think of yourself as a surgeon,

and not of how your child would cry

and scream to see what happens next:

his father slitting the bear's neck

with the scalpel of an X-Acto blade.

Now there is no turning back.

Hurriedly, as if you might be caught,

you cram the new stuffing in

like a smuggler hiding drugs,

then stitch the wound up again.

Nothing lasts is a notion

your child can't grasp. In the morning

he'll find his bear robust again

but with a scar like a warning.