The speaker is wrestling with something that can't be pinned down: meaning itself. The poem opens with whispers that tease and threaten from far off, and then a grip that tightens, coils, melts and vanishes. Objects seem solid and fleeting at once, and whether they resist or give way, they end up showing how futile the effort is. The poem's sharpest idea is that the search for meaning both creates meaning and kills it.
The image of dancing sits at the centre. Every answer moves more gracefully than the question that prompted it, so the questioner is always a step behind. The speaker also sets existence against being, and the poem suggests the two never quite line up. The closing image of sand running through the hands of a creature who doesn't understand "either" is quietly sad. The mood is wistful and restless, with a little teasing playfulness, and the trailing ellipsis leaves the speaker, and us, without a resolution.