THE SHADOWS Poem by Luis Vidales

When the moon rises
shadows begin to jump up and down.
Plaf! Plaf! You hear their sound as they fall.
And the ground began to fill with bizarre beings.
All night I watched them jumping up and down.
One of them fell near me
it went with me
hiding behind me
or jumping in front
and aping my movements
- from which I have deduced
that the shadow is
everyone's
monkey.

Afterwards
- I don't know how
the shadow tangled up around my feet
and made a real racket right in the middle
of the street with its terrible shrieking.
Since then I get panic-stricken
and I advise everybody
to take precautions
not to get tangled in their shadows
as they walk.