Ruth Jewell's poem is about losing a loved one slowly, while that person is still alive. The speaker says "you are drifting away," and the next lines suggest why: some days the loved one is "you," and on others "a little more / Is gone." The poem doesn't name an illness, but the imagery points to something like dementia, where a person fades piece by piece and can no longer understand what is being said to them.
The speaker feels a raw, helpless sorrow. Grief "scalds," a word that suggests sudden, physical pain, and the speaker is stuck unable to find the right words for it. Wanting to say "stay, don't go" to someone who "doesn't understand" is especially painful. The short lines and plain language make the mood quiet and exposed, almost like whispering. The poem ends where it began, repeating its opening question, which suggests the grief has no resolution and keeps circling back.