i
- The narrator brings us back to New England, at the end of summer when the cold just begins to show itself.
- He describes the landscape of the seashore and the drop in temperature—he's there just to hear the surf on the beach.
ii
- We move to Brookline, Massachusetts, where our narrator lives the sad life of a bachelor after losing "the war of love."
- He goes to an Asian restaurant regularly to eat—so much so that everybody there knows his name and story.
- Because of his refusal to acknowledge his defeat, he refers to himself as the Japanese soldier who refused to believe that WWII had ended and stayed at his post.
- The narrator reaches for comparisons with survival at sea to describe his lonely life at this time.
- He sees his lost love on the street (or someone who looks like her) and watches until she disappears; he feels more lost than ever.
- When he reaches his home, he wishes she would be there to open the door for him.
iii
- Verse alert: Walcott changes from tercets (stanzas of three lines) to rhyming couplets for this section.
- He further describes the loneliness of his life by addressing "the house," which encompasses both the places he's lived and the body he lives in.