Eve On A Tabletop Poem by Tara Teeling

I’m a queen and a dream. I move
in grinding glitter and wanton sighs,
fluent in guttural growl.
My colour is green, and I’m a Scorpio
in fishnets, a Venus in mesh.

I don’t think about the women
who would hiss and spit on my
feet in passing. They trip
on their judgment without any
help from me. Best to let them
gather in quiet pride, meowing
and caterwauling in ill-fitting
activewear and cutesy slippers.
I can move faster than they can.

I’m the modern day heteratae,
without Venice or its healing power.
I’m a high priestess in ballet slippers,
a sacred street-psychic in silk.
I know what everyone wants
and how much they’ll give to get it.

Judge me if you want.
I’m not sitting in dried-out inferiority,
growing stale, breaking into crumbs.
At the end of the day, I’m wanted and
dreamt about. My power is subtle, and
it whispers sweetly to those in wait.
I can steal a heart or a wallet
and both will satisfy my needs.
What you can’t admit is that
I’m fulfilling them too.

Why stand in tennis shoes, with my hair
hanging in oiled-strings, waiting
for them to be plucked and combed
from my sweaty face?
Why go home tired, waiting for the moonlight,
knowing that it’s my release from another
forgettable day? There were so many
forgotten hours which held
an unrealized series of breaths that
swirled in blue toward the ceiling.

I like my skin. I love my roundness.
I relish twirling in the pink.

I’m paid to celebrate and gyrate like
I mean it. And I do. I can smell
the beer and frustration, but I dance to
free them from themselves. I’m bringing
it all back to the beginning, to the first fire,
a simple seamless reality. I’m turning
back clocks and speeding ahead of complication.

With every clicking step,
and every clasp unhitched,
I am peeling away the layers
of inadequacy and shame.
With nothing more
than a lingering look,
I am creating man.

To look as though I’m hungry,
when I’m filled up with myself, is tiring.
I sway and pop, shimmy and drop,
all to keep them, and the music, alive.
I have nothing to say to them.
I’m not here to discuss the reasons.
They’re free to imagine, encouraged
to wonder, shielded from disappointment.
I know they’d never understand me anyway.

Judge me if that be your inclination.
With my giving, I’m getting,
and I love to tower in my heels.

I can’t help but wonder what
your austere, pointing finger of genius
has ever gotten you?