The New Criterion

A windblown grain of happiness
Has just now taken residence
Between the moistened surfaces
Of eye and lid: I blink and wince,
Not recognizing it as such,
And then I grimace to expel
What I can feel but cannot touch,
This moonlet torn from Planet Hell,
Whose photo, magnified, would show
A wilderness of jagged peaks
And icy crevices below.
It threatens to stay on for weeks,
And with no fixed plan traverses
The jellied pond that runs with tears,
Paying no mind to my curses.

Then suddenly it disappears.

What kind of happiness was this?
One more likely than another:
Briefly here, abruptly gone—bliss,
If not unalloyed with bother.