Why knowing is (& Matisse's Woman with a Hat)

    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 questionable¹ 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 descending²

    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 resuscitated³ from a decade prior to this.