A speaker watches an ant crawl along the tangle of charger cables on his desk and starts to see something of himself in it. The wires, which he compares to pulled-out intestines, form a maze with no clear entrance or exit, and the ant seems to wander without direction or destination. He guesses it is simply looking for food, but he half-jokingly wishes it were searching for the meaning of life, laughing at his own grand idea with a "Ho ho ho!"
The tone then turns inward. Through cigarette smoke, he questions where his own life is heading and what he is looking for. The reply comes from Abigail, whom the poem names only by first name and marks with an asterisk. She says gently that there is no answer to find, only the longing itself. The mood is wry, quiet and a little weary, but it ends in a kind of calm acceptance rather than despair.