The Stranger

It sits on the wood like a dropped fork,

useless while the right hand scrubs the grease.

I take the nippers to the dry, white skin

around the nail, trying to make it neat.

It doesn't feel like it belongs to the rest of me.

There’s the scar on the thumb, a pale moon,

from the night the paring knife slipped

through the skin of an onion.

It’s daintier than the other, less calloused,

waiting for its turn to hold a weight

that never seems to come.