Jonathan Moskaluk
Sixteen Stitches
Grade three
was my last at Airport Elementary—
a low, L-shaped school near the base.
Everything was arranged into rows:
the military houses, the bus lineup
where I fought that older boy in the mud,
the cubbies where I got in trouble for kissing.
At lunch, we flew across The Big Toy—
a large, steel-fastened, log jungle gym.
A fortress standing in lava.
I remember my accident
like I remember my parents’ divorce—
a slide show in a dark room:
being not it;
the tug of my unlaced shoe;
the stair edge like a hatchet;
my two eyes, and then a third—
the seam of my eyebrow opening
like the oysters dad would shuck
during our family camping trips;
spilling across the gravel
like one of mom’s teapots;
watching the frenzy of children
slowing, changing colour—
their faces such honest sculptures.
Then adult voices—strained
and trembling like teacups—
spilling their worry onto me;
their eyes pulled wide like a scream;
their eyes not matching their smiles—
the scariest part.
Jonathan Moskaluk lives on the Canadian West Coast. He’s always a few steps from a forest, a short drive from a beach, and a lifetime away from writing everything he’d like to write. His work has been published (or is forthcoming) in Grain, The Malahat Review, Dipity, Asylum, and elsewhere.