Spoken by someone who follows a person without being seen, the poem works like a quiet threat that slowly turns into something sadder. The speaker tells the listener to walk, sing, or whirl around, but insists they are always there: footsteps crushing leaves, a voice over the wind, a smell carried on the breeze. The images are close and uncomfortable, with the speaker hiding behind curtains, doors and trees, even "breathing down your neck."
Near the end the tone shifts. The speaker is "unseen, unheard, unfelt," leaving not even a footprint or a song. Living in a "little shell" of bright memories, yellowed images and silenced waves, the stalker seems stuck in the past, perhaps haunted by a lost love. The poem suggests obsession born from loneliness rather than pure menace. The mood is eerie and tense, yet it carries a thread of longing, and the final line, "I watch – and wait," leaves us uneasy about what comes next.