The speaker uses housework as a way to keep painful feelings at bay. At first, cleaning almost seems pleasant: the soap bubbles are "enchanting," with tiny rainbows in them. But the water is "hot, / But not hot enough," which suggests a need for something harsher, as if the scrubbing has to hurt or burn to be enough. The list of floors, stairs, windows and cupboards makes the work feel endless and mechanical.
The mood shifts when the chores run out. With nothing left to do, the "demons" arrive, and the poem turns bleak. Loneliness is personified as something proud that squeezes the speaker until they "wish to die." That line is stark and heavy. The ending is quietly sad: the unkept garden isn't a problem to solve so much as an excuse to escape again. The speaker goes back to work not to finish something, but to avoid stillness. The poem leaves a feeling of a trapped, repeating cycle.