"Sorting Laundry"- tone

"Sorting Laundry"
by Elisavietta Ritche

This poem is full of figurative language, like the extended metaphor, which helps reveal meaning and the changing tone.  The tone in the first three quarters of the poem is relaxed and happy.  The speaker talks about folding clothes of herself and her significant other.  The laundry descriptions show how the woman is happy and comfortable in her relationship.  The relationship is long, balanced, and the man and woman accept each other.
The relaxed and happy tone changes at the end though.  There is a discovery of a "strangely tailored shirt left by a former lover" (Ritchie, 842).  This prompts the speaker to think about past failed relationships, then she begins to worry about her current relationship ending.  "A mountain of unsorted wash could not fill up the empty side of the bed" (Ritchie, 842).  This hyperbole shows how lost and lonely the speaker would be without her significant other.  The tone at the end is more worried and frantic.  After a second look, the reader may even notice that throughout the poem, the speaker talks about smaller and smaller clothes, symbolizing smaller and smaller details of the relationship.  She slowly picks apart the relationship until she becomes frantic and thinks of worse-case scenarios.
The diminishing size of the clothing helps with the change in tone that comes along with finding the strange shirt.  The tone shows how the speaker truly feels about the relationship- usually comfortable and satisfied, but scared if she thinks too much.