The poem is set at a funeral, and it watches two people who feel very differently about being there. The first is a boy of eighteen, uncomfortable in his suit, tugging at his tie and wondering why he has to dress up for the dead. Opposite him is a girl whose grief has hardened into anger. She whispers "you did this" and points at the cheap casket, which holds what the poem calls "your target." That phrase suggests the boy, or the "you" being addressed, is tied to the death in some way, though the poem doesn't spell out how.
The girl has lost a friend and a sister, and the poem says she is ready to strike back in that room of "somber black." The ending shifts from the scene to what it means for her. She wants to stop the "broken record" of a girl's life, refusing to be a "bejeweled, exotic turntable" that only plays what others expect. The mood is tense and coiled, with grief turning into defiance.