Morning arrives like an attack in this poem. Sunlight "stabs," birds are almost cruel, and reality "punches" the speaker in the gut. All of this violence is set against the gentle world of a dream the speaker doesn't want to leave. The plea "Please don't wake me up" is the emotional center, and it sounds almost childlike.
As the dream fades, the speaker scrambles to hold on. The details keep slipping: was it the beach or the park? What did the people look like? The dream "floats away in the wind," leaving barely a footprint behind. The poem's lowercase lines and its sudden italic-style questions capture that frantic, half-awake confusion.
The ending is quiet and sad. In a short exchange, the speaker admits, "I think I was happy," unable to be sure even of that. The mood is one of loss and longing, the ache of missing something you can't even fully remember.