Grant’s Tomb

From its roof, pigeons explode, their wings
thrumming like playing cards, clothespinned
to our bike spokes when we were kids.

A jogger briskly thuds through growing
piles of leaves. One snags on a stray
wisp of her hair before it zag-

zigs through the air. Sword-crossing spans,
one dappled pair soar out beyond
the traffic’s flow. Through clouds of smoke,

they vanish above a tug’s smokestack,
its wake widening as it chugs
toward Great Gray* and The Palisades.

---

MARK MANSFIELD is the author of two full-length collections of poetry, Strangers Like You (2008, revised 2018, Chester River Press) and Soul Barker (2017, Chester River Press).  He has a chapbook titled, Notes from the Isle of Exiled Imaginary Playmates (2020, Chester River Press) due out this summer.  He received a B.A. in English from Virginia Commonwealth University and an M.A. in Writing from Johns Hopkins University.  His poems have appeared in The Adirondack Review, Anthropocene, Bayou, Blue Mesa Review, The Bookends Review, Canary, Fourteen Hills, Gargoyle, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Iota Poetry Magazine, The Journal, London Grip, Magma, Measure, Potomac Review, Salt Hill Journal, Star*Line, Tulane Review, Visitant, and elsewhere. He has been a Pushcart Prize nominee.  Currently, he lives in upstate New York.

*The George Washington Bridge

[image: Grant's Tomb | RJ Swanson]