The speaker opens with a blunt confession: "I fear the open street." Everything after that reads like a description of the shelter they have built against it. The title, "Sanctum," means an inner, protected room, and the poem lists what fills this one.
The objects are odd. A calf's head hangs above the office door, as if guarding the threshold, though the poem never says why it's there. Down in the cellar, the speaker and others ("we") have stored a silk flag found in the dirt and a key found in the fire. Both things seem rescued from loss or destruction, and the key, which should open something, is kept hidden away instead.
The mood is uneasy and secretive, a little ritualistic. The short, flat lines make the fear feel plain and unexplained. The poem suggests a place where safety depends on keeping odd, salvaged things close and the outside world shut out.