Judging by the title, the poem seems to come from an open studio, a place where people drop in, look around, and move on. The speaker meets new friends who "zoom / past for an hour," and the quick, almost breathless verb captures how fleeting these encounters feel. Meeting people this way makes it "hard to see the pattern," as if the speaker can't tell whether these brief meetings add up to anything.
The middle stanza turns to small, almost childlike questions: how tall are they, do they wear shoes? These are the details you'd know about someone you'd spent real time with, and the speaker doesn't. The question "who were they before" widens the gap further, reminding us that each person has a whole history hidden from view.
The last lines settle on a mix: knowing someone "in this peculiar way, / both tentative and sure." The mood is curious and gently wistful. The speaker feels real connection, but it's a partial one, and the poem seems content to leave it that way.