The poem follows a woman caught in an abusive relationship, and it shows how she keeps repeating "He loves me" even as the evidence piles up against it. Each time the line returns, it is followed by something that contradicts it: a kiss with another woman, a night away, a punch. The repetition sounds less like a statement of fact and more like something she tells herself to survive.
The turning point comes when she calls the police and recites what happened in a flat, bare list. The phrase "He loves me" is gone from her account, and the only trace is "He said so every day." Then she is brought in for questioning, and she cries. Her final line, "He loved me," shifts to the past tense, which suggests she is finally letting go of the belief she has clung to.
The mood is bleak and quietly painful. The short, plain lines make the violence feel stark, and the ending feels like grief and realization arriving together.