When I was little
a girl at school told me
that if you die
things grow on top of you
like hedges

she said they planted her gerbil that way
and the very next year
they ate the strawberries
that grew like candy
as if placed there at night
by his twitchy little paws

I still think of that
when I see an oak tree
wondering about the hero
who lies beneath it

or the pretty girls
quiet and rotting
under rose bushes

all of them
a city of buried pedestals
from which wooden hands grow
patiently reaching
for the sky.