Three short stanzas, three quick glimpses of a mind turning over its own past. In the first, night works like a summons: the speaker is called back to themselves and hears "an earful of old pain." The quiet of darkness lets old hurts get loud, as if memory were speaking straight into the ear.
The second stanza is a small puzzle. The speaker has two loves but only one pocket, so there's nowhere to keep both. It reads as a choice or a squeeze, a sense that something has to be left out. The poem doesn't say what the loves are, and that openness lets the line feel both playful and sad.
The last image is the strangest. Arson is called "a pretty house" built on "ingenious chemistry," which makes destruction sound clever and almost beautiful. Judging by the imagery, the speaker may be thinking about how ruin can be tempting, or how we admire what burns. The mood is hushed, wry, and uneasy, with grief held at arm's length by dry humor.