The speaker begins by tying identity to labor: "I am my work." The work turns out to be a hangman's, though the poem treats it with strange flatness. Noon brings "an ordinary hang," as if an execution were just another item on the day's schedule, and then the speaker simply says, "We ate." The jump from death to a meal is jarring, and that coldness is the heart of the poem.
The second stanza is harder to pin down. The speaker compares something to a liver and says they "took pleasure" in watching it "draw to an end." The image is odd and bodily, and it's unclear exactly what ends, whether a life, a task, or the day. Judging by the tone, the pleasure seems unsettling rather than cruel, a numb satisfaction at finishing. The mood is detached and darkly deadpan, leaving us uneasy about how routine can dull a person to the weight of what they do.