The poem starts with a blunt, physical detail: it's so hot that clothes feel impossible. That bare, exposed feeling carries into the second stanza, where the scene shifts to a single drop of wine glowing with daylight. The title, "Longest day," tells us this is the peak of summer, when light lasts as long as it ever will.
The surprise comes at the end. We learn that this wonder happens "after / her husband is dead." The line break leaves a small pause before the news lands. Nothing in the poem says she is grieving in a dramatic way. Instead, she notices something small and beautiful, and it moves her.
The mood is quiet and mixed. There is loss, but also sensual pleasure and a kind of openness, as if heat and grief have stripped away her defenses. The poem seems to suggest that life's beauty keeps arriving even when someone has gone, and that noticing it doesn't cancel the sorrow.