Darrell Gray's poem doesn't tell a story so much as throw one strange image after another at you, and the fun is in not being able to settle. Cannibals, aspirin bottles, a phonograph needle in someone's teeth, a baby playing a fugue: none of it adds up to a plot. Yet the sentences sound confident, like a lecture on sociology or science that has slipped its moorings.
Still, some themes seem to run underneath. The poem keeps poking at modern life, with its television, commerce, presidents, and opinions that are "feathery even at the core." The speaker seems amused and a little skeptical about how people explain the world to themselves.
The mood is playful, dreamlike, and slightly absurd. The last section, with its night drive and the cheerful "So long to the cannibals!", feels like escaping a puzzle without solving it. The poem asks you to enjoy the oddness rather than decode it.