The poem follows one long night shared by two people, from the sound of a shakuhachi flute after midnight to the vibrations of a gong near dawn. The speaker seems wholly absorbed. The music reaches "our ears and eyes" along a path of pale green light, as if sound and colour were the same thing. Short, spare lines like "Hours reflected in wine" and "Hands touching silence" slow everything down and make the night feel hushed and intimate.
Then comes a break. A wetness appears "between our cheeks," and one of them is crying, though the speaker cannot tell who. That blurred line suggests how closely the two had merged. Yet the closeness seems too much to bear. They feel they have "violated the universe" and are pulled apart. The ending is cold and quiet: they stand in the everyday world, separated by a "hyperspace of time." The mood moves from enchantment to tender awe, and finally to a lingering, unexplained sense of loss.