Sorting Laundry

"Sorting Laundry" by Elisavietta Ritchie

When initially reading this poem, I believed the speaker to be a mistress of man she seemed to be speaking of. The line "left by a former lover..." (Ritchie, line 42), first confused me as I believed the speaker was referencing the man. Once understood, it made sense for it to be about the girl realizing and remembering her own former lover and the remnant she has left from the relationship  Also, the beginning of the poem in the first stanza, it made me believe that the speaker wanted the man to be folded into her life and not that the man was already a major part of her life. The hyperbole in the last stanza of the poem explains and exemplifies the enormous feeling the speaker has for the man. Clearly, the speaker has a large piece of their time, energy, and life in the man she lives with. The piece is so large that she cannot image how empty she would fell and how she would fill the emptiness. Lastly, the shift in line forty comes as if I was to place myself in the folding positon. When I find something with a memory attached around the house, I reminisce and sometimes the feelings come back. The speaker experienced this in the poem and the tone of the poem shifted when she found an object that brought back a swirl of memories that cause her to question and wonder about her current relationship.