Shel silverstein...?

Question

what does this poem mean? =]

Two boxes met upon the road.

Said one unto the other,

"If you're a box,

And I'm a box,

Then you must be my brother.

Our sides are thin,

We're cavin' in,

And we must get no thinner."

And so two boxes, hand in hand,

Went home to have some dinner.

Two Boxes--- Shel Silverstein

Answer 1

This poem is talking about two skinny boxes who were so thin that they needed to go eat.

Answer 2

Two boxes met. The two boxes were thin, and so they decided that they both needed to eat so that they wouldn't cave in. And since they're "brothers" they might as well eat together. That's it.

Hope I helped! (I love Shel Silverstein, by the way. His poems are so funny sometimes. I haven't read anything by him for like, four years, though.)

Answer 3

The key is in the reference to "hands."  Boxes obviously have no hands, and so the reference to the boxes going home "hand in hand" asks the reader to question all that has been said by the narrator.  

What kind if questions?  Well, for one thing - why are the boxes empty?  Or caving in?  They clearly are meant to have been filled with something, but it seems likely that these boxes took it upon themselves to take their contents, and sell them even though the contents belong to others.  These boxes on the road are highway robbers.  That is where they got the money for the fancy dinner they will have at home.

But wait, you say:  boxes can't rob. For one thing, they have no hands.  Precisely.  Notice the beginning "IF" you're a box"  "IF" is not is.    

This is a poem about two robbers, who rob someone and take the gain to have dinner.

(Alternately, a nonsensical poem about the comforts of finding a friend and sharing things like dinner and good rhymes.)

Answer 4

They aren't supposed to make sense. They're just about nothing. That one was about two boxes who must've been brothers. It has no actual meaning. There was one about a girl who made a snowball and it melted. They're just nonsensical ones for fun. :)

♥Graceful Little Alice♥