A speaker looks back on a dead relationship, starting with a tender picture of a pink city at dusk and the day growing gentle in its old age. That softness doesn't last. Memories of a lover's hair on the pillow, her scent, her shoulders at dawn give way to the bitter list of what came after: silence, lies, tired eyes, no more sex, and boredom.
The speaker feels worn out more than heartbroken. He calls the relationship a performance, with himself as a "dancing monkey" out of step with the organ grinder, and describes a comedy with no laughter and a tragedy with no despair, "only anger." The mood is wistful at first, then weary and bitter.
The ending shifts again. The love is buried under a blank gravestone, and the speaker suggests that its decay might feed "new life." The poem closes on a faint, uncertain hope that something can grow from the ruins.