Wolfe's poem reads like one long, sleepless night in a cluttered room. The speaker is waiting for someone, burning candles, listening to an empty phone, and trying to fill the hours with whatever is at hand: drink, cigarettes, thick books, films, music, even a return to religion. Nothing quite settles him. His eyes dart, his head feels full of sweat, and "everything closes in."
The language is clipped and jumpy, with short commands and fragments that mimic a restless, anxious mind. Details like the crooked painting and the broken typewriter add to the sense of a stalled, shabby world. The mention of Godard and Fellini shows him reaching for art as an escape, though the "picturesque lies" suggest that these comforts are only pretty distractions.
By the end, the liquor and the dancing seem to tame his isolation. The final image of "hysterical eyes" arriving at "something never imagined" is open-ended, leaving a mood that is feverish, lonely, and strangely hopeful.