A man tries to take in an entire city in a single day, and the poem follows him as he drives. He races through neighborhoods, over bridges, past Park Avenue doormen and down potholed streets, as if speed could let him possess every inch of the place. He grew up here, so the drive is also a way of reaching for his own past and the many people he has seen.
The feeling builds from hunger to frustration. He wants everything, yet he cannot hold every detail in his mind, and he feels cheated. The poem hints at some "pain" pushing him, though it never says what. By the end he remembers that he only wanted to visit a city that seemed both powerful and mysterious, and he gives up the attempt. The mood is restless and breathless at first, helped by the long, rushing lines, then quieter and humbled. A city, the poem suggests, is too big to be captured all at once.