The title, "In lieu of flowers," is the phrase used in obituaries when mourners are asked to give something other than blooms. The poem seems to offer its own odd substitute: a curse, spoken every day, as steady as doubt itself. That comparison suggests the speaker finds cursing less a burst of anger than a habit, almost a necessity, like a way of staying honest about loss or unease.
Then the devil appears, and the tone turns darkly funny. He must be patient, the speaker says, because tomorrow belongs to "ash and forgetting," a bleak picture of what time does to everything. Yet the last lines undercut him: being a poet, he "cannot stay an hour." It's unclear whether the poet is the devil or someone else, but the joke lands either way. Poets are restless, unreliable, and not good at waiting around.
The mood is wry and shadowed, mixing grief, doubt, and a dry sense of humor in just a few lines.