The Bird Netting

I threw some netting over happiness,
Though it hadn’t helped to save the fruit,
Just salving conscience and entrapping us;

The birds got it all despite the netting;
They peck the burlap and pluck at the jute;
And what was to keep misfortune from getting

What runs out through rough hewn, through brute,
And isn’t a matter of mesh, but of gauge —
Thin coverings that call for forgetting
A cumbersome joy, suppressed exquisite rage:

A senseless quarrel’s harvest of haplessness,
Beknotted now, too pitted to recruit
A better man, an arbiter, a lapidist.