National Women's Month: Puma Perl's poem "What in the World"

WHAT IN THE WORLD

(once again, RK and David Bowie)

What in the world can i do?

My shoes are still untied.

I trip into people’s lives

and out again,

intimacy as random

as a taxi cab.

I am a broken basket.

Don’t put your eggs in me.

Like Bowie’s girl,

I prefer to stay in my room,

and my eyes are gray.

Sometimes.

It is always sometimes,

never forever.

My hands are not my hands.

They tell their own stories

in street Spanish,

sign language.

A knife in the park

A fall on a Central Park rock

An open artery

The right one,

evenly tanned.

On the left,

a ring made from a fork.

It won’t come off.

I don’t remember

where I got it

or how it wrapped

itself around me.

I don’t remember

names, places, birthdays

or my babies’ first words.

I remember this morning.

Keys on the coffee table,

English muffin,

butter melting,

hot cup in the car,

Lou Reed, Sweet Jane,

Chinese proverbs.

Lives saved like pennies,

collected and spent.

I made a pact to live

until i die by hands

other than my own.

So what in the world can i do?

© puma perl, 2017

Puma Perl is a performer, producer, and a widely published poet/writer. She’s the author of two chapbooks, Belinda and Her Friends and Ruby True, and two full-length collections, knuckle tattoos and Retrograde. As Puma Perl and Friends, she performs with some of NYC’s best musicians and merges poetry with rock n roll. She is a regular contributor to The Villager. Puma is a recipient of a 2016 Acker Award in the category of writing, and a 2015 New York Press Association Award in recognition of her journalism.