You could use a subroutine reference and form a closure over $i using a do block so that it remains in scope outside the block.

johngg@aleatico:~$ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -E 'say q{};
my $rcShow = do {
   my $i = 1;
   sub { return $i ++ };
   };
say $rcShow->() for 1 .. 3;'

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I hope this is helpful.