Smudged identity

Dust lay thick on the picture frame

until I wiped it—

then there it was:

a fingerprint smeared,

not neat but dragged like tired footsteps

across glass.

Sunlight caught the smear,

made it stubbornly visible,

not the perfect print

but a trace caught mid-fall,

clumsy, human.

I almost wiped again,

but left it there—

the imperfect mark

where someone touched,

then forgot,

like memory fading

slow.