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# Unknown Number
- URL: https://www.fsm.ink/unknown-number/
- Published: 2025-08-08T17:00:50.000Z
- Updated: 2026-06-03T17:48:31.000Z
- Author: Staff
- Tags: Poetry, #Import 2026-08-03 09:59

*by Leah Maitland*

I’ve been trying to make a long-distance call to heaven  
to speak with you. I was told I wouldn’t have to pay  
interplanar fees if I used whatsapp, what with the wi-fi  
but it’s been a decade, and I’m still ushered straight to voicemail:  
Thank you for calling *static* pause cannot come to the phone  
right now, please leave a message after the hold line  
I’ve been on so long; I can harmonize their holy chorus.  
With each message I wonder how much you can really hear  
from our lowest tier internet plan, our pitiful indulgence,  
the prayers and tears that have gone unanswered.  
If you’ll ever call back, will it be from a cell,  
or will you clink in quarters from orange pill bottles  
to a payphone in reply, each cent a millisecond,  
remembering our area code when once you couldn’t  
recognize my face anymore? Will I be able to hear  
your voice, or will you always exist in the sound  
of hanging  
up   
 click

> Leah Maitland is a poet out of Green Bay WI. Their work has previously been seen in *ALT Magazine and Illumination Journal* at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.