Lying in bed, tired and close to tears, the speaker counts up what a loss has taken from them. The man at the center of the poem is gone, and the poem suggests they will never see him again. What hurts most are small, specific things: his eyes, his smile, and the simple fact of waking to empty hands instead of his face.
The images turn the sadness into something strange and disorienting. The speaker feels "stranded" while "sinking in a sea made of only land," a contradiction that captures being lost with no way out. The tears are "soulless," and the walls are "mouthless," so nothing answers. There is also regret here: he will only remember the angry words from long ago, and the speaker can no longer take them back or say anything kinder. The mood is quiet, heavy, and lonely, and the short closing lines, "I have lost; / I have lost much," feel like a sigh of defeat.