Adrienne Rich's poem, Living in Sin, tells us about a couple who live together. The poem illustrates what the woman thought her workshop would look like, “she thought the workshop would hold together” (1) and what it actually looks like, torn apart. The poem also tells how "a cat stalking the quaint and amusing mouse had risen at his request" (5-7). Here we see that a cat has stood up at the request of the man and we can describe that the man has now entered the poem. There is an unlikely feeling between the man and the cat, and this poem tells us how the woman fantasizes about what it would be like to live with her partner, but as you can see, it is not real. The form of the poem is free. verse, meaning there is no regular rhythm or rhyme scheme. The fact that there are no rhymes in the poem tells us that the couple does not get along in the relationship. For example, in the first two lines, the speaker says: “She had thought that the workshop would stand on its own, without dust on the furniture of love” (1-2). The word "had thought" tells us that the woman imagined the relationship would be something she wanted, but it wasn't. The word studio tells us where the couple might live and the phrase “love furniture” follows the word studio. These lines could tell us that the studio is where they are intimate, but they actually tell us that the word studio refers to their relationship. Therefore, the speaker tells us that she thought the relationship would sustain itself, meaning she expected the relationship to be perfect, so that she and her partner wouldn't put any extra work into it . The meter of the poem contains at least ten syllables. in some lines, others have eleven syllables, and the rest are less. Al...... middle of paper ...... and it would be a never ending cycle because even if she cleaned one thing another mess appears with the coffee spilling on the stove. The poem ends with the night hiding the reality that the woman sees in her daily relationship. During the night, the woman can forget all the wrongdoings in her relationship and relive her dream of her perfect relationship. The way the speaker suggested earlier in the poem that the daylight, the milkman, and the beetle's eyes seem to illustrate how they witness how the woman actually lives, is in fact the reality of her life that repeats itself every morning. The speaker uses a simile comparing daylight to slag. At night, the woman falls in love with her fantasy, but her sleep interrupts her expectations of the morning light which will begin the cycle again..