Belinda and her Friendsby
PUMA PERL
erbacce-press
£4.00
belinda
belinda’s long slow features make young men burn
raised on concrete, they imagine holding her in
country hammocks
pushing her on swings
corner boys invite her to the movies, they take her hand
tall boys with hurt eyes follow her, ask to walk her home
tito’s mother left him in a shelter when he was three bobby’s
parents died of the same rotten disease
angel’s uncles took him in the back room
all the tough boys wear pain behind wary eyes
belinda lazily
allows their attentions in her hard-hearted way
she barely remembers her childhood
there was a kitchen chair, she’d stand on it to reach the stove
her baby sister held it steady so wouldn’t fall off while she cooked
two little girls alone in a tenement room
filled with fire escape dreams
belinda lives six flights up, she lives in heaven
she painted stars on the ceiling, suns on the wall
there are locks on every window and door
keys are her diamonds, encircling her thin caramel wrists…
—Puma Perl
"This chapbook, the first by Puma Perl, is an exceptionally real depiction of life in a part of New York in the last millennium, where heroin or alcohol abuse is an integral part of life, where life is cold but full of a transient warmth, where hearts are larger than you might expect...Puma Perl is an extraordinary poet, she captures a feel and sense of place exquisitely." —David McLean
erbacce-press
5 Farrell Close
Melling
Liverpool
L31 1BU
UK
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