This poem takes the form of a monologue, delivered by an interviewer or salesman to an applicant. The applicant, it soon becomes clear, is a man seeking a woman to marry. The interviewer begins by checking to make sure that the applicant is flawed or missing a part of his body. He asks the applicant, for instance, whether he has a crutch or a glass eye, seemingly hoping to discover that he is missing a body part or otherwise disabled. He commands the applicant to stop crying before discovering that he is indeed missing something: his hand is empty.
The speaker offers the applicant another hand, to fill his own empty one. He explains that the hand, a synecdoche for a wife, can perform a variety of tasks, from bringing tea to wiping tears. In fact, the speaker hints, new wives are built out of salt made from these very tears. He urges the applicant to marry "it," but then changes the subject, noting that the applicant is naked. The speaker offers the applicant a suit, which is stiff and uncomfortable but, the speaker insists, well-fitting. Plus, it's extremely durable and protective, able to withstand everything from water to fire. The applicant will be buried wearing the suit, the speaker declares.
Unfortunately, even though the applicant is now clothed, the speaker points out, his head is empty. But he claims to have a fix for this. He calls someone out of a closet—evidently the prospective wife. This wife is naked at the moment, as blank as paper, but in twenty-five years, he promises, she'll turn silver, and in fifty years she'll turn gold. As a matter of fact, he says, the woman is more or less a living doll able to cook, clean, talk, and turn into anything the man needs, including a poultice to plug wounds or an image to occupy his eyes. The applicant, meanwhile, doesn't have a choice: the speaker says this marriage is his last resort, and urges him to go through with it.
