The speaker sits up late with a woman, drinking red wine and talking about their lives. She tells him about her children: her daughter's easy breech birth and her son's harder one. The speaker finds the two-and-a-half-year-old daughter "adorable," a word he used to hate. When he says so, the woman teases him, saying he isn't adorable himself, only sweet sometimes, "like liquorice."
The mood is warm and intimate, with a bit of playful humour. The scattered, staggered lines make it feel like quiet, unhurried talk. The turning point comes when she briefly leaves to check on the children. Alone, the speaker realises he was wrong to think life was a "stupid fucking game" with fixed roles. He says she has changed him completely. Life now seems less like a game and more like a dream waiting to come true. The poem suggests he feels hopeful, and perhaps a little surprised at himself.