And now, for another

Living In Sin

She had thought the studio would keep itself;
No dust upon the furniture of love.
Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal,
The panes relieved of grime. A plate of pears,
A piano with a Persian shawl, a cat
Stalking the picturesque amusing mouse
Had been her vision when he pleaded "Come."
Not that at five each separate stair would writhe
Under the milkman's tramp; that morning light
So coldly would delineate the scraps
Of the last night's cheese and blank sepulchral bottles;
The on the kitchen shelf among the saucers
A pair of beetle-eyes would fix her own--
Envoy from some black village in the mouldings...
Meanwhile her night's companion, with a yawn
Sounded a dozen notes upon the keyboard,
Declared it out of tune, inspected whistling
A twelve hours' beard, went out for cigarettes;
While she, contending with a woman's demons,
Pulled back the sheets and made the bed and found
A fallen towel to dust the table-top,
And wondered how it was a man could wake
From night to day and take the day for granted.
By evening she was back in love again,
Though not so wholly but throughout the night
She woke sometimes to feel the daylight coming
Like a relentless milkman up the stairs

-Adrienne Rich

This poem is from my American Lit class last spring, and re-reading it made me love it even more than I remember. Even though I have to read it pretty carefully, I like that it's not broken up at all, except for the plethera of punctuation. I also loved the opposing night and day imagery, and how this woman's ideal is so well contrasted to the reality of the situation. The title is also interesting to me, and sets up the religious language throughout the poem.