sweater / fascia / field //Colin Keating

sweater / fascia / field

sweat·er (noun) 1. one that sweats or causes sweating, such as: your saltwater skin stretched out under a canopy. The camp counselors can’t see in this far of dark, so we’re kissing everywhere except the mouth. Me and you, the one that sweats, the one that causes sweating. 2. a knitted or crocheted jacket or pullover: we used my ratty red one as a pillow, threaded with thistle and bur, dirt and blade, a bower-bed for our snaking tongues.

fas·ci·a (noun) 1. a flat, usually horizontal member of a building having the form of a flat band or broad fillet, such as: the side of your stomach digging into me, freckled and blonde, flat and

broad. 2. a sheet of connective tissue covering or binding together body structures, such as: kissing a boy like kissing yourself. 3. secret, dark, endless mouth, such as: one that sweats, that causes sweating.

field (noun) 1. an open land area free of woods and buildings, where we ran between the bunkhouses, where they caught us humming in the dark. 2. the place where a battle is fought, such as: ignoring you for the rest of the summer, crying into my ratty red sweater, the sheet of connective tissue binding our bodies together. 3. my mind interrogating my body (the one that sweats, that causes sweating). 4. the sweater you took from me, the tissue of these words connecting us across fields of time, such as: who can I touch, and why is it freedom.

Colin Keating is a writer, musician, and artist from Portland, OR. He’s written the poetry collections Smoking at Disneyland, Dog Tao, several chapbooks, and Red Medicine, a collection of sonnets based on Fugazi songs. He appreciates small, well-crafted things (like poems) that rearrange the furniture in your head. He also loves loud music, porch hangs, and the regal platypus.