soy nicaragua (or, "for sriram")

you smell like the soil on the slopes of volcanoes,
aching to be trodden with the heat of my skin.

electricity has never invented itself as it did through (y)our touch, and
our exchange of words swells quietly, vehemently, without remorse
like a pugliese piece
pregnant with restraint and vitality
as we tremble (un)willingly into the summer heat

conversation has consistently been our cartography,
be it in writing or pouring from our lips
i have spent years now translating these cross-continent journeys
into roads resembling spines-
and to you i have given years and uncountable routes of unfiltered light
...those years now just remnants dappled on the interstate lines--
as the words and "what-ifs" we leaned on so heavily
disappear suddenly in migratory flight

and with only seconds left i know now
"light is clever but conditional
depending on angles and time of day and eyes"

i am the threads that have woven your web
bending this far but not broken just yet.
without warning,
we turn over in sleep together, hazy in our cocoons,
and the bedsheets are now barren battlefields
of wars ending too soon