The poem was inspired by a painting of the same title by Edward Hopper (Early Sunday Morning). Stone describes what is visible in the painting and then muses about what "may be" happening. For example, in "the next block someone may be practicing the flute."

Hopper's painting, like all art and literature, is an invitation for engagement, reflection, and expansion. While Stone inventories the painting's urban terrain, he is compelled to enter into the picture with his imagination. By doing so he demonstrates our dual capacity for both the facts of science and the less precise, but equally valuable impulses of fiction.