Depending on your situation, you may also find Data::Alias to provide a good alternative.

use Data::Alias;
my @array = (
    [1,2],
    [3,4],
    [5,6],
);

foreach my $list (@array) {
   alias my ($first, $second) = @{$list};
   print $first, $second;
}
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Any performance hit will be trivial, and you'll get a performance boost over an array if you access the values more than once.