It never ceases to unnerve me, planes flying this high with plastic windowpanes. Against my brow the inner of the two is cold and on its flip side flecked with dew. Beyond the outer, strands of water vapor drift like disassembled tissue paper, or like the fingers of the mist advancing through rose and lilac bush and chain-link fencing. I can remember summer morning fog peopled by no one but the odd gull or dog (invisible), and sounded on the hour by the bells ringing in St. Mary’s tower, bells that deepened, not dispelled, the silence, bells one can hear out on the harbor islands, they say, on a still day. Star of the Sea, Mother of God, Mary, pray for me, pray for my mother, Mary, and my father, John. Always, but now, especially, and while we’re gone.