Shadows of

Day 3: Open to Interpretation - What does the word "shadow" mean to you? Write a poem about it.
--

We put things in boxes.
Sunglasses (frames white, lenses tinged with blue, two smiling
faces with an orca under the Miami sun); blanket
(velveteen fibers, blue and fuzzy, your insignia embroidered
in white); feather (peacock, multi-colored, marking my place
in a book too esoteric to read through. "Even the greatest
disobeyed," she told me, but I am no Prahalad,
I am not even greater or great.)
Packed away in a brown box, flaps with
corrugated innards sealed up with tape
from a bureaucratic post office.
We put years in boxes
and we become shadows of ourselves.