Dave Bonta pictures houseplants that have been put outside and don't know how to behave there. They sit "awkwardly," like tourists in a rough, unfamiliar port. They topple in a breeze, they can't cope with rain, and the insects ignore their shiny, scentless leaves. Everything about them is made for indoor life, so the real outdoors treats them as strangers.
The speaker watches with gentle amusement, but also some tenderness. The humor of the tourist comparison softens near the end. At night the plants are "the only things still shining," which makes them look oddly beautiful, even a little ghostly, against the dark. Then comes the final image: they send up flower stalks a week before the frost. It's hopeful and doomed at once, since they bloom just as the cold arrives. The mood is wry, quiet, and touched with sadness. The poem seems to sympathize with anything caught out of place, trying to flourish at the wrong moment.