On a gloomy, rainy day, the speaker wanders through town in a poncho, joking that he looks like a tired, retired superhero. The tone is wry and a little weary. He moves between concrete buildings and glowing screens, then waits at the post office, where 68p buys a stamp bearing a future king's face. The red postbox becomes a "totem" with a mouth that devours the letters fed to it.
Back home, with printed words in the bag, he reads them and feels the pull to go back out and walk in the rain again. The poem doesn't say what the words are, though the title suggests something added afterward, an afterthought. The ending turns quiet: the rain pauses, and the only sound is "a computer, breathing." The mood is lonely but gentle, mixing dry humour with a moment of calm. That last image makes the machine feel almost alive, as if it were company.