nele ponce

i am a fierce woman a sensual woman a woman who’s worn in the strength of carrying her people a woman who pierces through careful performance a woman who keeps her love like gold she’s learned to stop leaving on the table yet offers it as an elixir—in deliberate doses a sovereign woman a porous woman a woman who has every capacity to choose—

you

savor the textures of my mystery stroke along the coarseness that lives in my silence caress me where my contours are pronounced and my skin most tender linger on the motions of my dance just shy of harmony inhale me knowing i’m your death dressed as wine

“come here” you say and i fold into you like an exhale at the end of a long day