National Poetry Month: Fordham Poem of the Day

Scene on a Ledge (for Vaudeville) (by Amanda M. Calderon)

I guess this means the enormous, bloody tooth that pried itself—no, just dislodged—
from my mouth last night
was for you
and that Death with a black bowler—and, because it’s
comical,
a monocle—
will flutter in
dandily

and recite a monologue about how you are what you are,
what you possess, what rings around your head in the middle of the circle, among the things you are meant to act with; how you won’t know what to do with them; how you’ll put on the hat and say you are an honest honest man, except not enough and not quite right and Death will want to know if you realize that he and the acting professor are the same which is to say that you will die when you don’t know what to do with a pile of junk on a floor and I hope you don’t go flinging yourself out of that window because of it or me

I don’t want to die on a chaise lounge, falling asleep by the sea

(Amanda M. Calderon is a second-year Master's student in English with a creative writing concentration.)