Sorting Laundry

Sorting Laundry, by Elisavietta Ritchie uses an extended metaphor to explain a relationship. The speaker, we know is a woman, due to her saying "If I were to fold only my own clothes, the convexes of my blouses, panties, stockings, bras, turned upon themselves." She talks about her relationship, through sheets, pillow cases, towels and more seemingly arbitrary laundry items. She uses them to describe how her relationship is going. She seems to convey that her relationship is going pretty well. She says"Pillowcases, despite so many washings  still holding our dreams", which shows how her relationship still has hopes and dreams that can be fulfilled. They haven't broken the seams, and their love is still alive. The poem does a good job explaining itself though the metaphor of laundry items. One of the best examples is "So many shirts and skirts and pants recycling week after week, head over heels recapitulating themselves." This shows how the clothing rotates in the washer on the surface, but on a deeper level is shows how the two in the couple keep falling in love with each other. At the end of the poem, a shift comes asking what if her lover were to leave. She seems to be simply thinking of the worse due to the quality of their relationship.