your skin is a flickering map
warm as cedar
scented with the coming storm
I don’t need to touch the flame
to know its hunger
I feel it in the air between us
thick and humming
as if atoms trade secrets
before our hands even meet

you are the spark
and the slow burn
an ember dragged across silk
waking every unlit nerve
into a sudden
golden roar of love and fire

and we burn
at the center of the room
a bright rhythmic pulse
that refuses to turn to ash