Poet John Carson lives in a crumbling seaside house with his sister and niece. Winter is upon him, and he writes feverishly to the woman who has abandoned him as a lover, yet kept him as a correspondent. Theresa: beautiful, generous. and married. The occasional fleeting, yet passionate encounter between the two lovers fuel John the writer, but leave John the man close to despair. Theresa's business and the ever watchful eye of her husband don't allow much opportunity either for stolen moments. But John's home life keeps him from misery and despair. The ever-baffling chores of domesticity, his niece's mysterious eating disorder and the menu that he's attempting to write in rhyming couplets save him from himself, most of the time. There's also the mad old woman who lives in their garden cottage and the poetry journal that John has just been appointed to edit. Between the anguish of love and the quirks of everyday life, will John and Theresa find a way to come together, or is a state of permanent longing in fact what poets need?