A speaker has been by the Nova Scotia coast for five days and notices that something has slipped away: the habit of prayer. The title promises evening worship, yet the poem opens with a kind of confession. She has forgotten how to pray. In its place come the senses. Dust and salt fill her nose, silence fills her ears, and the only company is boats and birds. The sea looks like grey crayon lines drawn on the sky, a childlike image that makes the landscape feel simple and close.
Then the mood lifts with the whale leaping from the water, trailed by dolphins dancing around it. It reads almost like a moment of wonder that needs no prayer. The last stanza turns quieter and heavier. She lists her excesses: too much fish, too much wine, too many hours in the sun. It ends on "no words." The poem suggests she is not so much empty as overwhelmed, and that silence might be her own kind of vespers.