The poem begins with translation but quickly becomes about something bigger: the gap between lived experience and the way we process it. The speaker says there is no "right" translation, only clumsy attempts to make a text match its original. Then the voice shifts and starts lecturing a "noble boring iconoclast," urging this person to leave the city, ditch the radio and coffee, and simply eat, breathe and look at birds. The tone is bossy but also playful, even pleading.
The speaker may really be talking to themselves. The ending suggests this: the throat and heart blur together, the sounds feel "ticklish, crybabyish," and the blood "isn't running regularly." Judging by this, the speaker feels overwhelmed and a little broken, stuck in a head full of words while longing for something physical and direct. The mood is restless, tender and slightly comic, with an anxious edge underneath.