IN POETRY
Aging

by Licia Morelli

​They dug out your lymph nodes and released your voice. The sewing and stitching at your neck reveal your armor reflecting against the island sun. This voice, the one you long imprisoned here in your caves, the one you could not, would not, allow its freedom, escaped through its trapezius bars today. Floating, permeating, infiltrating, adrift over blue sky, over ocean, talking to the weather. Charming the wind and waves at this winter solstice. The Greeks, the Romans, the Zen masters, call this voice Halcyon. A great plumage of blue and red across the sky. Its feathers brush against your metal as you weep for what is lost. This voice will be the epic you tried to contain. This voice will tame Gods and men. This voice will be your fourteen days.

​Licia Morelli is the best-selling author of The Lemonade Hurricane: A Story of Mindfulness and Meditation and Darn Tough: A Story of Grit and Grace (forthcoming from Tilbury House Publishers). She is the recipient of the 2015 Maine Literary Award and Gelette Burgess Honor. Licia is currently pursuing her MFA in poetry at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. liciamorelli@gmail.com