It all came back to me last night, stirred
By the sootfall of your things at bedtime,
Your head-down, tail-up hunt in a bottom drawer
For the black plunge-line nightdress.

These lines evoke a sudden, involuntary return of memory triggered by an intimate domestic detail: the beloved’s bedtime routine and the tactile, slightly grimy “sootfall” of clothing and drawer-linings. The speaker’s recollection is sensuous and exact—posture (“head-down, tail-up”), action (“hunt in a bottom drawer”), and the stark adjective “black” intensify the scene’s physicality. The phrase “It all came back to me” suggests that the remembered moment carries emotional weight beyond the ordinary, as if a whole relationship or period of life is condensed into a single nightly gesture. The tone is tender but edged with melancholy, implying distance, loss, or time’s passage.