There is a tree at the end of this street,
which only appears in the rain, and broken
bits of blue glass around the trunk.
We know nothing but the sound of water
in the ditch. Why is there nothing?

A man lived here once and you
saw him coming and going
from his house. He lived here
and was quiet and kept
many questions in his heart.
In time, he died one night
of the shivers. Not of the cold,
because it was summer and all
the windows were open.
The people slept without blankets
under half a moon.
Be he started shivering anyway
and could not stop.

Passing dogs bark at the house where
no one lives. And there we see the tree
and shards of blue glass. We stop
and listen to a river with nothing
to say. Why does it say nothing?

The Shivers by Kyle Kimberlin is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.