The speaker declares what they are in a series of short, blunt statements: prey, mammal, a creature run on fear. From there the poem slides between the animal and the strange. Eyebrows "pupate" like larvae, hair has been outgrown, and the body is described in terms of insects, grass, and weather. The speaker is earth-bound, descended from trees, yet drinks from the "gray breasts of clouds," which blends the human body with the sky and the nourishing, maternal side of nature.
The central image is the speaker standing on hind legs and honing themselves down to the thinness of a blade of grass. It reads as a way of making oneself small and alert, ready to be eaten by a cow or to be moved by wind. The mood is tense but oddly accepting. Fear is real here, yet the "affirmation" in the title suggests the speaker embraces being a vulnerable part of the natural world. The last line, with its "devil of dust," feels like a dust devil: a small, whirling, mysterious force the speaker names aloud.