The speaker describes a feeling of deep loss and disconnection. "We" have lost the land, or perhaps have been cut off from ourselves, and the poem treats those two things as nearly the same. The image of grass pulled from its shaft is a sharp one: something that once grew from the earth is now torn away, limp and without a source. From there, the people in the poem stand "with no meaning in spaces," as if they've been left floating with nothing to anchor them.
The ending turns strange and close-up. The opened ground feels as unfamiliar as the gaps between our fingers, something we should know intimately but somehow don't. The speaker seems to feel alienated from both the world and their own bodies. The mood is bleak and unsettled, and the capital letters and broken lines add to it, making the words feel stark and halting. The poem gives no comfort, only a quiet sense of being lost. The dedication "To Bob" hints at a personal address, though the poem itself doesn't explain who he is.