Elisavietta Ritchie
This poem is an extended metaphor as the items in the laundry symbolize her presumable relationship with a man. She begins in the first stanza with "folding you into my life" (Ritchie, lines 2-3), meaning that she has taken him in and made him an important aspect of her life. She includes "king-sized sheets" (line 4) which further emphasizes their closeness, as a couple would have a bigger bed than a single person. She acknowledges that their relationship has had some problems, but they have made it through the struggle and survived as a couple. The towels demonstrate their relationship's more wild side and unwillingness to compromise its individuality. That is one of the reasons they have lasted so long as a couple, and the narrator further explains their love as she wonders what would happen if they split up. She explains that "a mountain of unsorted wash could not fill the empty side of the bed" (lines 46-48), which is a hyperbole that explains her feelings. She would be deeply saddened if he left, and she could only fold her own laundry.
The overall structure of the poem follows a pattern as the narrator first folds large items (sheets) and ends with going through the pockets of clothes. This resembles how people analyze the circumstances, even when the situation is good.
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