Read at first, this looks like a scene of a happy young maiden twirling in her apron, but the poem quickly turns toward loss. It follows a woman as her memory breaks down, and the "burning memory" of the title seems to mean both something precious and something being destroyed. The judging-by-the-text clues suggest dementia or a similar illness: news arrives, events from seconds ago vanish, and she is trapped in repetition.
The most striking moment is the mirror. The poem stops to ask "Who is this person. / What is that thing," which captures the terror of not recognizing yourself. The speaker watches all this with sadness and a kind of helplessness, noticing the maiden's longing to hold on to lasting memories. The mood is heavy and mournful, with only one brief "jolt of bliss" before it fades. By the end, the woman is unrecognizable even to herself, and her death feels quiet, almost like the last flicker of a fading flame.