Puma Perl

Luciole
Press

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Puma Perl Contributor -- New York

Puma Perl is a poet and writer who believes strongly in the transformative power of the creative arts. Her work has been published in Cause & Effect, The Mom Egg, Brain Box, and other journals, and she has been a featured reader in various New York City venues. She is currently at work on her first book, which will be a series of linked poems based on the lives of several lower east side residents in the 1970's and 80’s.

eaves dropping

houses had
slanted
rooftops
eaves caught
rainwater
and secrets
shadows dripped
words

we live in boxes
now
trapped in
our own
strangled
visions
sounds flicker
and die

hold a glass
against a
wall
listen
a man lives alone
he curses
at his tv
all night
throws beer cans
at his dead cat

listen
a woman
breaks dishes
chain smokes
plays lite fm
slams her door
coughs all night

we have
no slanted
rooftops
no eaves to
shelter us
rainwater
falls free
we think
we live
in secret
listen
someone’s
always
there

© puma perl

belinda in the park

belinda and the girls sat in the park
cocoa, toni girl, bobbi ann, lisette
they shared beer and cigarettes
cocoa sold loose joints
toni girl’s check was late
lisette drank her pick-up
bobbi ann watched for her man
belinda told her story

i didn’t mean for it to happen
you know how london gets sometimes
he was drinking all day then we got high
we was on our way to the ten dollar hotel
by the time we got there we spent the ten dollars
and we’re walking and every three steps he nods out
walk walk walk nod walk walk walk nod
and I was high too but not like him
yeah, he’s greedy he never gives me that much

and i have my apartment right there on 8th street
but I let my sister stay there she was evicted
so she was there with jojo and her five kids
yeah he would have gone crazy with all that noise
so we never got to the ten dollar hotel
and then he starts getting stupid, talking shit
like he wakes up and now he has all these ideas
accuses me of looking at this one fucking that one
he grabs my soda and throws it at me in my face
my hair was sticking together and he slapped me
yeah right there in the middle of the street
and i have my apartment why didn’t I just go?

so anyway I stood and we went to 2nd street
some abandoned building I think it was on 2nd
and all night it was the same thing
he’d come out of his nod and he’d hit me again
and my hair stayed sticky with coca cola
and I woke up on the cardboard and there was pigeon shit
it was stuck to my hair and the soda it was disgusting
and from that night I came out pregnant
if it’s a boy I should name him segundo, right?

and guess what, his old lady’s pregnant too
i saw her at the welfare, she didn’t say anything
he’s still got her out on the street too
at least he respects me too much for that
he came around yesterday, he bought jojo that jacket
well he probably stole it but so what
daddy bought you that coat, right jojo?

yeah it’ll be all right, at least they all have the same father
cocoa, I don’t mean anything, mama, you know that
your kids are beautiful, god bless them
all these kids are beautiful, we’re all beautiful
and if he doesn’t do right this time
i’m gonna give labor and birth in puerto rico
right, jojo? we’ll go home to our island, papi
you and segundo can play in the rain forest
we’ll grow avocados and have a pool table
it’ll all be beautiful, just like us