Three short lines, and the poem turns on a quiet jump between them. The first two give us a plain, almost shocking domestic detail: someone at a butcher's shop has a pot to carry away the blood. It's practical and unsqueamish, the kind of thing you'd only notice if you were watching closely. Then the last line widens everything out to "evening in Venice."
That final line changes how we read what came before. Venice usually means canals, light on water, romance. Here it sits beside raw blood, and the poem doesn't comment on the contrast. It simply lets the two things exist together, suggesting that ordinary life, with its meat and its mess, goes on inside even the most picturesque places.
The speaker never says what they feel. They seem to be an observer, calm and attentive, taking in the scene without judgment. The mood is hushed and matter-of-fact, with a slight edge of strangeness. Because the poem is so spare, the image of the pot lingers, and the evening feels both beautiful and a little earthy.