On New Year's, the speaker stops to ask what the past year has taught. Do they see more clearly now? Are they quicker to let go of clouds and gestures, more honest in how they treat people? The questions come without answers, and the broken, clipped phrasing makes them feel like thoughts arriving mid-stream.
The middle sections look back at a year that is hard to hold onto. Ordinary scraps like toast and cheese sit beside "moments of ecstasy" and "water terrors lonely days," as if joy and fear were all mixed together. The poem then turns to a relationship: two people living side by side who grew distant, shouted, and needed touch, yet kept reaching for love, which the speaker calls a "holy grail."
The mood is tender, uncertain, and quietly hopeful. The ending doesn't claim any big change. It simply says the "groping" continues toward a "glad opening," and asks whether the sun has left the speaker wider, more open.