Accumulation

Eighteen months and no one's cleaned the glass.

I didn't notice until the winter sun came past

at the exact angle that made the grime look planned,

almost architectural—like someone had a hand

in it. I stopped mid-sentence. Let the email wait.

The street below went soft. The hard edges ate

themselves into a kind of gauze, the way

a photo goes when something in the tray

is off. Near the lower left: a palm-print. Small.

The size of a child's. I can't recall

having a child in this office, not once—

so whose. The sun shifted. I was done

with the looking. Back to the email. The grime.

The handprint still there when I left at nine.