Margaux Williamson (she/they) is a reader, writer, and bookseller. Their work has appeared in Paloma Magazine, Stone of Madness Press, EDGE CITY, and elsewhere. They live in the Midwest with their wife and two cats.
At the Guggenheim,
where I go to forget about us
and our potent, simmering sin
for a while,
suited folks guard the art
from greed, desire—
wild, reckless things like me.
I am lured
despite, or because of,
the risk.
I yen for the soft curved strokes
that call and reach
for my reach, imploring
Pease. Please touch. Please feel.
My mind and soul oblige,
and I cannot, may not, resist
the ache at the threshold of the barrier;
that hard-stop bold line between us
urging a critical distance
from your essence, omnipresent,
imbued everyplace—
the doors, the locks, the walls.
You are everyone,
everything, everywhere, darling.
The guards, the art, the temptation.
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The other day, I thought, annoyed, All of my poems are about Dad—even when my intended subject is
relatively remote, distant in nature, wholly unrelated to my grief, he’s still there, between the lines,
behind the words, as if there’s nothing else to write about, nothing else to love, no other poetry-shaped
people, like, for instance, my wife when she’s blushing, which happens a lot, or my mom when she’s
laughing, which happens less now, though she is no less luminous for that; and there are other indelible
wonders, you know, like springtime breezes or a book from a friend, that bottomless gift that I hold in
my hands that look like Dad’s, that look like Dad’s, that look so much like Dad’s—and then I thought
no, that’s not how it is; not all of my poems center him.