a skull floats up from the pond and makes a sound like a gull

shriek to warn me I have stood here too long      when it dies

back into the water it leaves silence all around and reedstems

like boiled femurs leaning away      such provocation

is needed to pull a man open to expose his earthmeat

anyone can understand a skull even the seeds in my pocket

are cracking awake      I can feel the long scar around my neck

glowing the dock underneath my feet

melting into rust      god in his inestimable wisdom is on the side

of the big battalions       instead of my one gashable body he would

have preferred fifty      now my shoes are soaking through

now the math seems obvious       blue water plus yellow sun equals

green plants it’s almost too simple to speak      I am inconsolable I need

pondfoam and boxed wine in a coffee mug or soothing

saffron and bay leaves I need to be poured dry instead of this slow

seeping     it hurts to even think about the leak in my brain

where brackish water trickles in and memory trickles out

with what do I mend a hole like that      answer me      with what

Kaveh Akbar founded and edits Divedapper. His poems appear recently or soon in American Poetry Review, Tin House, Boston Review, FIELD, PBS NewsHour, and elsewhere.