Even here, lovers will waste each other's time,
explaining how things work, how the world works.

Everything works, and the world will be fine,
but they will walk earnestly ("as in the day")
dressed like adults, without needs or desires,
and hold forth, like teachers, about machines
and policies and practices and "what they want"
in the upper echelons and why "all we can do"
is one thing (that won't work) or another (that will)
and someone will "just have to understand".

Lovers, I remind you, this is Scandinavia. Relax.
The war is far from here and a hundred years away.