Featured Poet: Puma Perl

walking home

street merchants
drink beer
argue
“what’s the problem?”
“no problem…
i’m easy
easy as a sunday afternoon”
“sunday morning”
i automatically correct him
“sunday morning”
he agrees with a nod
“sunday morning”

tattoo purple bruised boy
staggers frantically
rapid eyes and words
he is my unborn child
the one without a chance

i love pathmark
musclebound men
in wheelchairs
buy vegetables
i want to sit on their laps
and eat oreos

stray methadonian
made the late pick-up
he balances 3 plastic bags
a daily news a beer
“how ya doin”
he rasps at me
we know our own

man walking bike
dreads to waist
begs for my phone number
i point vaguely to a window
tell him that’s my husband
he rides off

in the elevator
tiny asian boy
re-enacts the news
from Virginia
points at his head
“pow! that’s what he did”
his sister explains
“he loves that story”

i carry notebooks
write on envelopes
at traffic lights
lean on mailboxes
sit on strange stoops
pull words from the air
songs from the street
stories from my scarred mind
ideas touch my spirit
as they fall from the sky

©2008 Puma Perl/NYC