The poem sets up a strange, unsettling list. The gun, we're told, is afraid of trouble and pain, and then the list slides sideways to include the speaker's own bad temper, reading, art, and the company of a rose. It's hard to say whose fears these are. The gun seems to take on the speaker's feelings, so that a weapon and a man start to blur together. Soft, gentle things like books and a rose sit beside a violent temper, as if the speaker is divided against himself.
The last line is the sharpest. Talking "in a whole lexicon of blood" suggests that the only language the speaker and gun share is violence, even though everything listed before it points toward tenderness or fear. The mood is tense and quietly sad. The poem seems to hint at someone who may want something gentler but communicates in a way that can only wound. It leaves us uneasy, unsure whether the gun is a threat or another frightened presence in the room.