The poem reads like a short slide into trouble, and the title tells us as much. It begins with a plain, almost casual statement: the speaker goes to the bar. Then the images start to wobble. A hole on a boat becomes a looking-glass, which is a strange and slightly alarming picture, since a hole in a boat means sinking, yet here it also shows the speaker something like their own reflection.
The queen moth hanging in "many a Marriott" shifts the setting to anonymous hotels, where a delicate creature seems out of place among the identical rooms. The poem's last lines turn to "good wine and merry," which led the speaker to "the easiest bed."
Judging by the imagery, the speaker is looking at a pattern of easy pleasure and drifting. The mood is wry and a little rueful. Nothing is spelled out, and the jumpy, dreamlike gaps between the images feel a bit like the blur of a night out.