disordered. The city of Grand Rapids
fluoridated its water June 25,
1945, to avoid needless suffering—
and since observing the plaque at the monument
Steel Water I’ve been wondering what exactly,
is needful suffering? When I tell folks
about how I broke all my front teeth
during first grade recess people ask, yes but
were they permanent? Which I took to mean
my loss was a painless loss thanks to baby teeth’s
planned obsolescence. Though it hurt so bad
I quake in my sleep to this day from the pain.
A life of my own, with you there too. Side by side
La-Z-Boys, Christmas each week. Backyard with woods
and a creek. Ian Curtis says people in this world have no place
to go—Up, down, turn around. Ignatian spiritual practices
consist of identifying false consolation, hard consolation.
In 1988 I first observed love indistinguishable from explosive
effort. The trout jumping the ladder: hard consolation.
Swimming against grief, the fish leapt falling water.
Damming the river, enough hydroelectricity to reorder want.
Rainbow trout return home to spawn. Attachment tears us
apart again. The fish-ladder is functional artwork, a concrete
sculpture designed to allow spawning fish to circumvent
the 6th St Dam. A barrier only the strongest steelhead
were capable of leaping. At least, it wasn’t my young heart.
Say it’s the last time. The great body came first. Then tributaries.
