A parent keeps vigil over a sick baby in a hospital room, and the poem tells it in flat, plain statements. We hear about the screaming, the waiting, and a doctor's plan: if the medicine works overnight, they go home; if not, surgeons may take a biopsy. The speaker never says how frightened they are. The fear shows in the details instead, like the hours on a hallway gurney at the emergency room and the cold, practical "decision was made."
The night itself is small and tender. The speaker feeds the baby formula that upsets her stomach, then sings to her, and the lines of the song float into the poem without comment. The quiet room, the traffic fading below, and the sense of hovering above the city create a hushed, suspended mood. The ending is humbling. The speaker finally closes their eyes, and a night nurse soothes the baby "better than I knew how." The feeling is exhaustion, helplessness, and a quiet gratitude mixed with a sting of inadequacy.