The poem is a strange, dreamlike portrait of a woman named Jenny. The opening lines pile up bizarre images: grass drowned in monsoon rains where her heart should be, an uncle sold to a circus, a night sky pinned in place with a wing screw. None of it follows ordinary logic, but the overall picture is of someone emptied out, with something wild and neglected growing where warmth used to be.
Then Jenny speaks, and her words are oddly plain. She says people are delightful only when they're silent, at home, asleep, or on a quiet Sunday when the shops are shut. The joke has a bitter edge: she likes people best when they aren't actually there.
The speaker mostly describes her from the outside, without judging, so the feeling comes through in the tone. It's darkly funny, lonely, and a little unsettling. The French title, asking "how are you?", feels ironic, since Jenny seems to want no one to answer.