The poem begins with the speaker describing how "[s]ome" people "keep them" hidden away in "shoeboxes." From the poem's title, readers can assume that this "them" refers to the "Darling Letters." While the speaker hasn't yet said what, exactly, a darling letter is, the word "darling" implies that these are sentimental items—likely love letters. The fact that people keep such letters hidden away in a box, meanwhile, suggests two things:
- People want to keep these letters safe (they're not shoved willy nilly in the back of a drawer, but placed into protective boxes).
- People don't want to think about them. They keep the letters out of sight and out of mind—most of the time, at least.
As the speaker says in the next line, people occasionally take these shoeboxes out of the darkness and revisit the "sore memories" within, the same way that someone might feel compelled to pick at a scab or prod an old bruise. Upon lifting the shoebox lid and exposing these memories, they seem to blink at the sudden brightness (think of how you might squint and blink when someone suddenly turns the light on in a dark room). The speaker is personifying the memories here, treating them as things that have a will and agency all their own. These letters, the poem implies, contain life.
Next, readers learn why people tend to keep these letters hidden most of the time: reading them means confronting "their own recklessness." These letters, it seems, contain evidence of people's wilder, more careless younger selves. And in the time since the letters were written, their intended readers have changed and (ostensibly) matured; they're no longer as reckless as they once were.
Notice how, in line 3, the poem also shifts out of the third person for the first time. While it began with the speaker referring only to "some" people"—effectively distancing themselves from things—they admit now that they're familiar with this process of revisiting the past; it's not just other people's recklessness, but "My own..." the speaker says. The italicization of "My own..." might suggest that the speaker is reading out a quotation from a letter (perhaps a sweet/sappy reference to one's beloved), but this phrase can be read as the speaker correcting themselves, moving from describing other people's experiences to admitting that they, too, have letters tucked away in shoeboxes.
This poem is written in free verse, meaning it doesn't follow a regular meter or rhyme scheme. That being said, it is still quite lyrical! Note, for example, the alliteration of "lid lifts" and "recklessness written," which adds subtle music and intensity to the poem and helps to evoke the mixture of anxiety, anticipation, and excitement upon revisiting past relationships.