38
ONE MORE STITCH
By Sara Sims
South Australia, Australia
“Thank you” she utters in a small voice,
addressing a short brisk man,
rounded glasses, trimmed beard,
a man who spent three decades
cutting into bits of skin,
three hundred and sixty months,
carving into flesh,
one who produced perfect incisions
with minimal pain or blood,
during fifteen hundred and sixty weeks
of faultless stitching,
of rising the hydraulic table,
and of beaming halogen rays
into malignant spots on skin.
He is an unruffled man, cool, patient,
competent and secure in a job.
He is a surgeon In a GP clinic,
eight km from Adelaide CBD.
‘Just one more stitch,’ he says.
She sees a serious look,
a reassuring smile.
‘Just one more stitch,’ he says.
She sees a serious look,
a reassuring smile.