Mantra is a woman's broken recollection of a time when she was ill and delirious. She remembers what she said but not hearing the other person's voice or sensing them nearby. All she has is a fragment: an unfinished sentence in a neglected diary, where the other person wrote that the discovery of their life was that they were wrong.
She wants to complete that sentence with comfort, "you were loved… you are remembered." But her demons keep her from doing so, and she can only murmur the same line, "yes I am a part of you," again and again. The repetition works like the title suggests, a chant that sounds both devoted and helpless.
The mood is sad, hazy and haunted. The ellipses and broken lines mimic a fevered mind losing its thread. The poem suggests grief or loss, though it never says who the "you" is. What it leaves us with is the ache of wanting to reach someone and managing only a loop of words.