Sorting Laundry

Of all the poems form this unit, this poem seemed the easiest to comprehend. Elisavietta Ritche begins the poem by comparing laundry with her relationship with her lover. She says, "Folding clothes, I think of folding you intk my life." This makes perfect sense to me. Developing a relationship is much like folding someone into your life. They become part of that life, folded and entangled in everything. The extended metaphor continues to compare various pieces of clothing with aspects of the relationship. "Pillowcases, despite so many washings" expresses the fact that the couple has been together for a while. "So many shirts and skirt and pants recycling week after week, head over heels" says that the couple is still very much in love. However, despite the current healthy state of the relationship, thinking about anything too much can allow someone to find a flaw. This speaker thinks back on an old relationship in which she apparently was left by her lover and then with a sharp change in mood if the poem expresses, "if you were to leave me... A mountain of in sorted wash could not fill the empty side of the bed."