Warm Blood

So we've been at this all night and the light's coming up,

and neither of us has moved an inch, and neither of us was wrong.

You've got the whole of physics and I've got a Wednesday in October,

and it turns out that's a fair fight after all.

You told me what I am: a small warm irregularity,

a local dip in the disorder, paid for by the sun,

a fire that thinks it's a person, and you're right, and you're right, and you're right —

so let me tell you what I did with it.

(THE SECOND LAW) You never did define it.

I asked you in the second hour. You said you couldn't.

(THE HEART) No. I can't. I've stopped trying.

But I can tell you about last Tuesday, if you want.

(THE SECOND LAW) That is not the same thing.

(THE HEART) No. It's better. Here:

The alarm went at ten past six and neither of us got up.

The coffee was bad because I made it and she said so.

There was an argument about the bins that we have had for nine years

and will have again on Thursday, and it is not really about the bins.

Her hair was doing the thing it does. She has never once seen it.

She said something unkind about my shirt and she was right.

And on the way past the table she put her hand on the back of my neck

for about a second and a half. Maybe two.

She wasn't thinking about it. She'd have no memory of it.

And I would not trade that second and a half

for every star you've got.

(THE SECOND LAW) ...That is not a definition.

(THE HEART) No.

(THE SECOND LAW) The system will still close. The temperature will still equalise.

Nothing you have said changes any of it.

(THE HEART) I know. I never said it did.

(a beat)

(THE SECOND LAW, quietly) ...Say the part about the bins again.

Everything cools! (everything cools!)

So come here while we're warm!

Everything cools! (everything cools!)

So put your hand right where it was!

We are two warm things in a cold room

and the room is always winning —

and it can have the ending, it can have the whole damn dark,

but it does not get tonight!

It does not get tonight!

So here's to every borrowed atom, here's to every counted week,

here's to Bea in room fourteen and the rain outside the glass,

here's to eleven seconds of a man asking about milk,

here's to a pattern that is closed and is not erased!

Here's to the thirty-six more Sundays,

here's to every made bed and every mended thing,

here's to the fact that it runs out —

because that is why it's mine at all!

EVERYTHING COOLS! (everything cools!)

So come here while we're warm!

EVERYTHING COOLS! (everything cools!)

It's the truest thing there is!

And we are not going to beat it,

and we were never going to beat it,

and I have never in my life

been so glad about a rule!

Everything cools...

so come here while we're warm.