The Virgin Mary   I was fast asleep. The window was open. I must have heard a murmur. I rose from the bed, floating toward the ceiling, groping at the air, forgetting that I’d chosen to be earthbound, chosen to forget that I can fly. But now it all came back — that tingle in my spine, the will to let myself float free without falling, exactly as the whispers insisted. I drifted through the window, high above the lawn. Drawn toward childhood’s garden, I tried to reach for a woman there, radiant as she lifted her veil — could this be . . . ?                                                Just before dawn the full moon gloried over Brighton Beach.     © Michael Fleming Marlboro, Vermont June 2022