Twilight is the subject here, and Newberry treats it as a strange, uneasy hour rather than a pretty one. She begins with the old phrase "between dog and wolf," the moment when you can no longer tell a familiar animal from a dangerous one. From there the speaker piles up explanations: maybe the light is stubbornly refusing to leave, or maybe dusk has a smell, sweet and rotting at once.
The middle of the poem shifts to things left undone: a sentence that trails off, hair half-styled, a photo never taken, empty canvases beside clean brushes. Dusk feels like a pause where nothing gets finished. The speaker seems to watch it all with wary patience rather than panic. Clouds gather, wind rises, and then everything bends, slows and stops, waiting for night. The final phrase, "its regime of rest," makes darkness sound both orderly and a little authoritarian. The mood is hushed, tense and suspended, like holding your breath until the day is finally over.