When Everywhere Was Home by Puma Perl

if you had a bed
you slept in it
most of the time
and if you didn’t have a bed
you slept on something else

always home,
and it didn’t matter
if the sheets matched
or if there were sheets at all
it could be a striped mattress
with those buttons that hurt
or coats piled on the floor
it didn’t matter
if it was small or old
or a mattress on the floor
or a loft in your tenement room,
you were lucky
if you had a bed

I don’t remember bedbugs
back then
before crack and high rents
the nights were long
and never seemed to end
but eventually they would
and if you had a bed
you slept in it

there aren’t many beds today
nomads gather leaves
urban gypsies inflate
balls of foam,
blow through straws

if you have a leaf
or a ball of foam
you sleep on it.
and if you have a bed
you sleep in it.
everywhere is home.

Photo by Ellen Berman

Puma Perl is a poet and writer, with five solo collections in print. The most recent is Birthdays Before and After (Beyond Baroque Books, 2019.) She is the producer/creator of Puma’s  Pandemonium, which brings spoken word together with rock and roll, and she performs regularly with her band Puma Perl and Friends. She’s received three New York Press Association awards in recognition of her journalism, and is the recipient of the 2016 Acker Award in the category of writing.