“Living in Sin” is one stanza long and uses past-tense verbs and third-person pronouns with an unnamed female and male character as well as a detailed setting to make the poem feel like a short story.

Rich starts with the female who, at the beginning of the poem, looks at the mess of her studio apartment, wondering why she has to clean now that she’s in love; she thought there’d be “no dust upon the furniture of love” (Line 2). Surveying the scene, she seems to feel guilty about desiring that the things around her be cleaner and quieter, as the speaker interjects the powerful words “half heresy” in this moment (Line 3).

As if using a camera, the speaker spans the apartment, describing it for readers and allowing the subjects to embody its full array of contents: “a plate of pears” (Line 4), a piano with a shawl, and a cat chasing a mouse. These items suggest a contrast between the wealth and the poverty, the passion and the disinterest of the woman’s situation.

The speaker announces that it is early morning, 5am, and personifies the stairs using the word “writhe” (Line 8) to describe them under the milkman’s steps.