Some single decisions can determine the course of one's life. Deciding to marry is defiantly one of these decisions. In Elisavietta Ritchie's poem, "Sorting Laundry," the speaker compares folding laundering to making a decision about marriage. There are certain lines that leave clues leading to thoughts about marrying. The work expresses the poet's ideas quite effectively and therefore creates a successful poem.
             In only the second and third lines of the poem it states, "I think of folding you into my life." The first hint that marriage or dating is on the mind of the speaker. The first line of the second stanza it mentions, "our king-sized sheets." The large sheets are an allusion to two sleeping in the same bed. The next major thing to stand out occurs in the eighth stanza, "Myriad uncoupled socks." The uncoupled socks are a reference to all the people out there looking for their perfect match, just like the speaker. In lines forty and forty-one it says, "the strangely tailored shirt left by a former lover..." The reader is looking to settle down, her days of one-night stands are over. But, one of the most obvious and important statements come in last three lines, "a mountain of unsorted wash could not fill the empty side of the bed." No matter how busy the speaker is, nothing will fulfill her happiness better than marriage. After taking inventory, it is obvious the speaker is ready and searching for her significant other.
             The poet's work is organized in a very effective way. Elisavietta Ritchie successfully sets up a metaphor comparing how laundry is similar to the thoughts on her mind. She uses three line stanzas and with few exceptions two lines of the stanzas are dedicated to metaphors about laundry and one line is dedicated to direct thoughts from the speaker's mind. Together the three lines effectively give a first i...