The speaker looks back on a lover who stayed only for the night, arriving late and leaving at sunrise. Most of the poem is tender and physical: smooth skin on the sheets, warmth in the bed, a spot that still feels blessed long after the person has gone. The speaker also treasures simply watching the lover sleep.
Then the tone shifts. Calling the sleeping lover "a stalemate in the war between our hearts" suggests the relationship is full of conflict, and that peace only comes when one of them is unconscious. Once the lover wakes, "our love would battle others," which hints at outside pressures or other people, though the poem never says who.
The ending sets two kinds of skin side by side: the lover's soft, the speaker's callused and "sickly" under a "gazing glare." The speaker seems to feel unworthy or judged. The mood is nostalgic and quietly aching, a longing mixed with insecurity.