A person stands under the night sky, thinking about someone who died almost three years ago. The poem never says who the lost person was, but the speaker's tone suggests someone deeply loved. The central image is of the dead person "traveling at the speed of death," moving so fast that the speaker feels left far behind, as if time and distance keep growing between them.
The mood is quiet, wistful, and a little dazed. The speaker looks up at the stars and pictures the person as a single spark crossing the dark and returning. That idea of coming back is tender, but the ending is what lingers: it feels "as though you'd only closed your eyes / A moment ago." Three years have passed, yet the loss still feels fresh and strangely close. The poem holds two feelings at once: the huge gap that death creates and the sense that the person is barely gone at all.