Women Poem by Cecilia Guarnieri

I have spent my life
tasting the world
and nothing lingers
quite the same as women.

We carry the same code,
the same chromosome.
Yet I am still enchanted by them;
and only them.

A woman is like fine wine to me.
The tannins that stay
in my tongue and in my mind,
days after the bottle is empty.
She's earned and matured
inside the years that made her
exactly herself.

And I've never understood people
who drink wine in a hurry.

A good wine should be consumed
just like this poem—
word by word,
stanza by stanza,

pause
by
pause,

slowly,
rhythmically,
with the right amount
of roughness,
and honesty.

Ah—that's it.
It takes time.
I cannot just drink it,
I need to savour it.

I am in for the depth.
I want the sharpness,
the warmth, the history,
what remains in the glass.
I want all of her
until the very last drop.