Mark Mansfield is the author of one full-length collection of poetry, Strangers Like You (2009, revised 2016 Van der Decken). His poems have appeared in The Adirondack Review, Bayou, The Evansville Review, Fourteen Hills, Gargoyle, Iota, The Ledge, Limestone, Magma, The Opiate, Potomac Review, Pouch, Salt Hill, Scrivener, Unsplendid, Waccamw, and elsewhere. He holds an M.A. in Writing from Johns Hopkins and was a 2015 Pushcart Prize nominee. Currently, he lives in upstate New York.

Hushabye

What should be wings are anchors—like 
these words, their gaunt predictability  
haunting dusk past the white and darkening 
gray arch gracing the Manhattan Bridge.

Such half-smiles all whisper the same jive, Chris.
Some ephebe holding forth on Pomus then 
bop as the last shadows slow-drag across 
your lips:  of course, a pungent wisp of curry
mingling with sandalwood—O,  nothing,					
						nothing like a kiss . . .