The poem moves from a bitter observation about power to a private confession. In the first stanza, wartime forces the rich to hand the poor "some other stomach," a strange, unsettling image that suggests the poor are made to endure hunger, or to digest suffering the powerful won't touch. The second stanza is harder to pin down. The "contrivance of king and sandwich" seems to mock a clumsy scheme joining rulers and everyday survival, and it "broke down into sand," so whatever was meant to hold things together simply crumbles.
By the end, the focus narrows to one person. The speaker says their "sin matters little," as if moral worries have shrunk beside bigger dangers, and fear has become "the only wife now / with whom I lie." That line is intimate and grim: fear is a constant companion in bed. The mood is dry, bleak, and anxious, with a sardonic edge that makes the dread feel more real.