There was a moment, and maybe it was more than that, but it has passed now. And Amy thinks she can remember, feels her way as though she is in the dark and her hands out before her and everything unfamiliar to her touch; and the memory of it, such as it is, hurts a little. Like something she has lost and she only now knows how precious it was and does not quite recall the glint and glister of it, except that there was glint and glister. Maybe it is always like that.
Amy climbs up into the attic, and it is like she is making an escape from everything. She opens the skylight window and like that it is like she is in the sky and the night air is warm and the clouds so near she can almost touch them. Amy breathes deep and she lets it out again with a song. It was like that once, she thinks, every breath came out a song and standing in the street, a street she cannot name, with her head tilted to the stars, and it was as though she was floating.
She should know the year and the day, and the time to the second. It should be recorded somewhere, so she could return to it, so she could turn it over in her hand, turning it like a river turns stones, making them smooth and round and shiny. But when Amy tries to remember the details of that moment – or maybe it was more than a moment – she opens her palm and it is almost empty.
It was back at the start – in a way it was before the start, before he was known to her, really known. He was just a name then and a face and a body and a way of walking and a way of looking. In Amy’s head he could be anything she wanted him to be and she could be something new and something better. And they came together, one night somewhere and sometime, and they talked about everything and nothing and she does not remember a single word of what they said except that they gave shape to who they were, and he took her hand and he kissed her cheek – maybe he did, maybe that was another time.
Then Amy was in a street and on her own and the stars filled up the sky and she tilted her head back and breathed out a song. That was the moment, and she danced or the world danced and took her with it.
Amy tries to recall that feeling. She stands tip-toe tall in the attic dark, leaning out of the open skylight window, her head in the clouds almost and the clouds so thick she cannot see the hidden stars. She tilts back her head and closes her eyes and tries to remember that feeling she has lost, and it hurts not to come close. She takes a breath, full and deep, and she sends it out with a song, but the song is a different song and the world does not dance and a moment that was once joy is now ash or salt or sand in her mouth.
Patricia Ann McNair 
There was a moment, and maybe it was more than that, but it has passed now. And Amy thinks she can remember, feels her way as though she is in the dark and her hands out before her and everything unfamiliar to her touch; and the memory of it, such as it is, hurts a little. Like something she has lost and she only now knows how precious it was and does not quite recall the glint and glister of it, except that there was glint and glister. Maybe it is always like that.
Amy climbs up into the attic, and it is like she is making an escape from everything. She opens the skylight window and like that it is like she is in the sky and the night air is warm and the clouds so near she can almost touch them. Amy breathes deep and she lets it out again with a song. It was like that once, she thinks, every breath came out a song and standing in the street, a street she cannot name, with her head tilted to the stars, and it was as though she was floating.
She should know the year and the day, and the time to the second. It should be recorded somewhere, so she could return to it, so she could turn it over in her hand, turning it like a river turns stones, making them smooth and round and shiny. But when Amy tries to remember the details of that moment – or maybe it was more than a moment – she opens her palm and it is almost empty.
It was back at the start – in a way it was before the start, before he was known to her, really known. He was just a name then and a face and a body and a way of walking and a way of looking. In Amy’s head he could be anything she wanted him to be and she could be something new and something better. And they came together, one night somewhere and sometime, and they talked about everything and nothing and she does not remember a single word of what they said except that they gave shape to who they were, and he took her hand and he kissed her cheek – maybe he did, maybe that was another time.
Then Amy was in a street and on her own and the stars filled up the sky and she tilted her head back and breathed out a song. That was the moment, and she danced or the world danced and took her with it.
Amy tries to recall that feeling. She stands tip-toe tall in the attic dark, leaning out of the open skylight window, her head in the clouds almost and the clouds so thick she cannot see the hidden stars. She tilts back her head and closes her eyes and tries to remember that feeling she has lost, and it hurts not to come close. She takes a breath, full and deep, and she sends it out with a song, but the song is a different song and the world does not dance and a moment that was once joy is now ash or salt or sand in her mouth.