Folding Laundry: Metaphor for Love? Or the Black Plauge?

"A mountain of unsorted wash / could not fill / the empty side of the bed" ("Sorting Laundry," 49-51).

I think this poem is pretty adorable. (You know, until we discuss it in class and I find out it's actually a metaphor for the Black Plague. I don't . . . think it is. Nope. I just wanted to consider that idea.)

The first three lines establish a metaphor. As the speaker folds clothes, she thinks of folding her lover into her life. When I fold clothes, I think of how horrible I am at folding shirts -- they just never look good once I'm finished. I need one of those shirt folders. Maybe I'll try to think of something more philosophical next time. I'll get back to you on that one.

For most of the duration of the poem, the speaker describes in detail all of the clothes, towels, and sheets she folds as she does the laundry, and how they are connected to her and her lover. "So many shirts and skirts and pants / recycling week after week, head over heals / recapitulating themselves" (16-18). It's just very nice!

The last three lines (quoted above) contain an overstatement, "a mountain of unsorted wash," which is supported by the continuous and lengthy description in the poem of all of the laundry the speaker was folding. What the speaker is saying at the end is that a mountain of just her own clothes would not be able to fill the empty side of the "bed." Her lover is an integral part of her life.