"Flashlight" by Douglas Manuel

Flashlight

The Avenue: Lee’s Pool Hall, The Mirage, The Red Spot, Sonny Ray’s,

the smell of beers, brown liquor, and all the fears
of people who consult the edge every day. There is he.
There he always is. Amidst risk, behind the shell of a building left to die,
poor, gutted-open, and black, he’s a grace note
in the melody of a dice game: fate and faith stone-threw,
money moving so quickly no one owns it. Guns. Blades,
razor and switch. Back Do’ Lil Joe, The Hard way, Up Pops the Devil,
and the eyes of the legless tempter in Eden. He just got done
spinning, got money to spend, money to lend, money
to pretend that this him is the real him, the best him. He’s losing
less than he wins. Walking home alone heavier, he eyes a pigeon so dirty
it looks as though it’s a crow. From the shadows, it rises with a matchstick
in its mouth. Some hardhead put a pistol on the nape of my neck,

he told her later at her house, showed her, touched that soft spot. It was cold.

Douglas Manuel

Douglas Manuel was born in Anderson, Indiana. He received a BA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University and a MFA from Butler University where he was the Managing Editor of Booth a Journal. He is currently a Middleton and Dornsife Fellow at the University of Southern California where he is pursuing a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing. He has served as the Poetry Editor for Gold Line Press as well as one of the Managing Editors of Ricochet Editions. His poems are featured on Poetry Foundation's website and have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, The Los Angeles Review, Superstition Review, Rhino, North American Review, The Chattahoochee Review, New Orleans Review, Crab Creek Review, and elsewhere. His first full length collection of poems, Testify (Red Hen Press, 2017), won the 2017 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award for poetry.

Headshot: Stephanie Araiza

Photo Credit: Staff