The speaker is an older woman who feels shut out of her own life, and she addresses a carpenter as if he could build her a way in. The title, "Commission," makes the request feel like a real job order, but what she wants is not a physical object. A door "into my life" suggests she has been standing outside it, watching or waiting.
She describes herself humbly: a crow, a plain old woman. There is no vanity here, and no pretending. She arrives at dinner carrying "none but myself," by moonlight, which gives the scene a quiet, slightly eerie feel, as though she is a visitor even in her own world.
The last request is the strangest and most moving. She asks for "a further gallery in my good ear," as if she wants more room inside her hearing to take in what is around her. The mood is modest, lonely and hopeful. She asks for very little, only a better way to listen and to enter.