A man sits in an unheated house, staring at a stove with no fire in it, and blames himself for the fact that "she went cold." The line works two ways: the stove has gone cold, but so, it seems, has someone he loved. The poem never explains further, which makes the loss feel quiet and unresolved.
From there the speaker looks at what else shares his space. He calls the house a "husk," a shell that holds other lives: the mice he has killed, the snake that left its skin in the ceiling, even his own forgotten dreams, which he assumes are still there. Each is something present but unseen, or already gone. The mood is lonely and reflective, with a dry, almost matter-of-fact tone that hides regret. The final lines give the setting a neat twist. His house sits in a mountain hollow, so he is "both high and deep," a position that feels like isolation as much as peace.