The poem begins in front of a painting, but it slips quickly into memory and dream. A ringed hand lifts a cup, then smashes it down, and the silence afterward feels like the aftermath of an outburst. Across the room, the painted face smiles, or maybe it is only a painting of a smile, and that doubt sets the tone: nothing here can be trusted to be what it seems.
From there the speaker drifts into a stranger, more cosmic world, with trains, dawn, "Hilbert space" and infinity pressing against his skin. He cries "Out!" and starts to sag, strangling "softly, strangely." Then a woman appears on a cliff, her arms moving as if conducting the beat in his head. The poem seems to circle a lost or distant woman, though the text never says who she is. The mood is uneasy, dreamlike and haunted, ending with the speaker slowly sensing her intention.