The speaker imagines the minutes of an ordinary day being transformed into corn, something small, plain, and edible, set alone on a dish. The title, "Conversion," suggests a change of one thing into another, and here it is time itself that gets converted into food. By evening, the speaker sits down to this meal and "gives" their time to pie and spirits, as if the hours were something to be spent, or even offered up.
The mood is quiet, a little wry, and gently solitary. The word "alone" hints at loneliness, but the tone doesn't feel desperate. It reads more like contentment mixed with a shrug: the day is done, and what is there to show for it but a simple meal and a drink? The poem seems to ask whether time is ever really ours to keep, or whether it just gets consumed, minute by minute, like supper. The religious ring of "conversion" adds a playful note, turning an evening of pie and spirits into a small ritual.