forever in time

Albert Pinkham Ryder left his flat at 10:25 AM

when he noticed the reaching woman from the hallway.

Ryder was on his weekly mission to the vegetable bins

at his favorite fish market, while the reaching woman 

was in her apartment, struggling to retrieve an item from the floor,

and the door was halfway open so that Ryder could easily see

the goings on inside her flat.

he might’ve asked the reaching woman if she was in need of assistance,

but there's no conclusive evidence of such.

his sightline to the reaching woman was short-lived

and Ryder probably made his way to the vegetable bins

without further incident because he was in need of more colors.

what remains is inconclusive.

could be the reaching woman retrieved the item

from the floor, but there isn’t extant documentation

of her doing so, and to this day it remains a mystery

tucked into the borderlines of American art history.

did Ryder get to the fish market on this fateful day? who can say?

forever in time.