Read “The Musing Gaze: a conversation with Chad Parmenter” here.
Sex was a lead lens—even for you—or the you my gaze made—there was no looking through. Search under what you want it to be, and there it is—just the shutter of desire, and the vacancy in us, lit up in an instant—an image abandoned as soon as it was had.
You have been banished now, exiled from that desert neverland, and from the myths I visioned you into. Please be as free from desires as I am immersed in them—temptless, depthless, given in.
Chad Parmenter‘s poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, Kenyon Review, and Harvard Review. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri, and is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Niagara University.