The speaker describes a college that seems to hover above a freeway, its fancy buildings floating in a sea of ivy. Underneath that green surface, he says, wild strawberries are rotting and giving off a sharp stink. Almost nobody knows they're there. Students blame the smell on a broken gas main, a more ordinary explanation, and when the speaker tries to tell them the truth, they smile politely and then laugh behind his back.
The poem reads as a small, comic story, but it also feels like a metaphor. The ivy looks like a clean, polished surface, while something spoiled sits hidden below. The speaker seems to be the one person willing to notice it. He sounds lonely and a little desperate, and the closing line, a wish rather than a statement, makes him sound almost childlike. The mood is odd and wistful, funny on the surface and sad underneath. What he wants most is company: just a few people willing to look.