Why knowing is a quality out of fashion and no one can decide to

but slips into it or ends up with a painting one has never

seen that quality of light before even before having seen it

in between pages of another book and not remembering who knows

or recognizing the questionable quality of light on her face

as she sits for a portrait and isn't allowed to move an inch

you recognize the red silk flower on her hat

and can almost place where you have seen that gray descending

through the light reversing foreground and background

as the directions escape one as the way you have to

live with anyone as she gets up finally from her chair

having written the whole of it in her head as the question

ignored for the hundredth time as a quality of knowing is

oddly resuscitated from a decade prior to this.