Lying by a highway, my bones—or something deeper than bones—fill up with longing. You’ve gotten used to a heaven filled with telephone poles, but I want a sky that swallows ideas. I want to know why falling in love feels like listening to bones crack and why it hurts to watch the cars pass by and not know where they’re going. If you learn the earth, you learn motion. You learn that leaving is like descending into the cleft of a mountain, slipping a hand between rock and firmament—an exit into an open mouth.
Note: This poem previously appeared in Heather’s out-of-print chapbook, Inventory of Sleeping Things.
The writing of Heather Cadenhead is forthcoming in Ekstasis and The Rabbit Room. She publishes a monthly newsletter about her life as a writer and mother of two sons, one of whom is diagnosed with non-speaking autism.
Wow…another incredible poem!
Stunning, heart-grappling words