Puma Perl's two poems "Driving to Humacao" and "The Ava Gardner Museum"

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© 2022 Lindi Gordon, aka Clutterhead

Puma Perl is a poet, writer, and performer. She’s the author of two chapbooks, Ruby True and Belinda and Her Friends, and three full-length poetry collections, knuckle tattoos, Retrograde (great weather for MEDIA), and Birthdays Before and After (Beyond Baroque Books.) Her band, Puma Perl and Friends, brings spoken word together with rock and roll, has been performing together since 2012. She’s received three awards from the New York Press Association in recognition of her journalism and was the recipient of the 2016 Acker Award in the category of writing. In May of 2021, she curated and performed in four shows as part of the HOWL Happening! Artist in Residence program.


Driving to Humacao


Motorcycles

don’t scare horses

Bareback riders

gallop past

our creeping

smoke-filled car


A Popeye’s outlet

grins at the foot

of El Yunque,

a young girl,

wheelchair bound,

displays her stump

Rain forest

waves us off,


We took

the long way

round again

Everything

is playa

in Puerto Rico

Humacaenós lounge

in hammocks,

plots of grass

hover above ocean,

roosters

and naked babies

play as incongruously

as caballos

and Harleys


Finally,

the beach

We fall

into long hot

waves

Lay on hotel

towels

Tell tales

of old love


Monkey Island

floats in the distance,

as empty

as our stories


In Humacao

we eat fish

on long benches

A salsa mix

revs behind us

Dogs and small

children crawl

between our legs


Driving to San Juan,

the short way,

we take

the back roads

Winding darkness

Sharp turns,

one dance,

a final

café con leche

and we’re back

in Nueva York.

© 2022 Puma Perl



The Ava Gardner Museum


Exit 95, Smithfield, North Carolina

The Ava Gardner Museum

I longed to stop, enchanted

and seduced by Ava


She was born in Johnston County,

youngest of seven children,

described as stunning,

green-eyed and raven-haired

I would have visited the gift shop,

bought an Ava Gardner fan

for a dollar or a museum pin

or paper dolls or posters of Ava,

long eyes below thick brows,

earrings dangling to bare shoulders,

headdresses, tiaras, strapless gowns,

halter tops, wavy hair, velvet gloves

Stunning, green-eyed, raven-haired Ava.


I stared out the window hopelessly

as we flew past the exit,

powerless as a child

strapped into a car seat.

Adolescent fury tore through me.

Fuck you, I whispered to him,

I hate you, I love only Ava


© 2022 Puma Perl

(originally appeared in knuckle tattoos, erbacce-press, UK © 2010)


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