The Man in the Hallway

He’s lived here for a decade, maybe more,

a quiet tenant in my mother's life.

I hear his heavy step across the floor

while he goes searching for a paring knife.

He sits there with an orange in his grip,

his knuckles swollen, knobbed like ancient wood.

I watch the waxy, bitter peelings slip,

and wish I loved him better than I should.

White pith is stuck beneath a yellowed nail,

a hand that never held me as a child.

I see the way his shaky efforts fail

and feel the old resentment getting mild.