The speaker is gripped by anxiety about what's coming. It begins with small, physical signs: the crickets go quiet, and the speaker hears faint sounds like chattering teeth and a heart pounding like an animal in a slaughterhouse pen. Fear takes over the body, and even the breath feels as fragile as a frayed rope.
Then the poem turns. The speaker tells the future, "go on / you don't exist yet," as if trying to wave it off. But the future is addressed as something greedy, "voracious as a vacuum," swallowing everything. The speaker's own appetites have shrunk, and the visible ribs suggest a body already worn down by worry. The final question, "what else would you have / me consume," sounds both weary and defiant. There is almost nothing left to take. The mood is tense, hushed and bleak, with a thin thread of dark irony running through it.