I've never thought about love as laundry. or as anything at all related to laundry. but in "Sorting Laundry", that's exactly what it's compared to. the speaker "folds" her love into herself. just as one folds clothes. everything about their relationship is part of this "laundry" imagery. the pillowcases hold dreams, towels refuse to bleach colors, just like their passion. not only do they not fade, they "refus[e], even after years,/ to bleach into respectability" (lines 14,15), suggesting that it's not just waiting for things to get to a normal level, this passion and love is so intense that they can't even get it to fall to a "respectable" level. their little kinks get left if they can't be worked out, and then determined to be "in style". by the end of the poem, the speaker goes so far as to say that if she were to "fold/ only [her] own clothes", meaning to be if she were alone, that even all her folded laundry wouldn't fill the other side of the bed.
not even all her dirty laundry can fill the void. how touching.
Hello Kate Schutte!
ReplyDeleteWell this poem is messed up by making this metaphor. I have to make a comment on a blog so congratulations! This is a metaphor right? and is sarcasm capable of being read? as the last line of your lil blog? well have a nice day!
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