Sometimes,
if you are walking through a cemetery
you might hear them calling after you.
Their voices sound like rusty whistles and dry, crackling leaves.
You might hear them say that your nose is too long
or that your clothes look like an unmade bed.
They might say that your hair is a bird’s nest
or that you are too fat to stand on top of them.
That is how the dead will talk to us,
when they are tired of lying perfectly still
inside of their flat, tight boxes,
constantly staring upwards and never able to see the stars.
