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FOUR WAY REVIEW

Pablo Piñero Stillmann has been the recipient of Mexico's two top grants for young writers: The Foundation for Mexican Literature (FLM) and The National Fund for Culture and Arts (FONCA). His fiction, nonfiction and poetry have appeared in, among other journals, Bennington Review, Sycamore Review, Notre Dame Review and Washington Square Review. He is the author of a novel, Temblador (Tierra Adentro, 2014), and a short story collection, Our Brains and the Brains of Miniature Sharks (Moon City Press, 2020).

GUILT by Pablo Piñero Stillman

Wednesday, 14 April 2021 by Pablo Piñero Stillmann

is that dead dog’s collar you keep 
in the drawer of unusables
along with the hardened super
glue, a remote control for channels
long cancelled & the lock 
of a stolen bicycle. Guilt is circular, 
yes, tattered & sturdy, comfortable
in its choking. The problem is you
remember everything. The problem is guilt
has a cuteness to it, a breathing
innocence: a time
of distended bellies, of gnawing 
because new teeth hurt so damn much. You find 
it over & over—while furiously looking
for your ankle brace or the spare 
set of car keys—& your heart drops
at the sight of those ridiculous, perfectly
orblike blue whales, smirking
whales printed on the collar 
& did I say guilt 
is round? Guilt looks like it would stink
from here to the highest heaven, but it’s been 
washed & again so many times 
it just smells stale. It warns 
that death’s face is a puppy. 
You must remind yourself that those sad 
eyes are just a product of evolution. 
Guilt is nothing 
if we don’t offer it our necks. 
Guilt is a tool, it allows what walks
us to never ever let go. How 
is all this power held together 
by a buckle of the cheapest plastic? 
Did I say guilt is a loop?

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  • Published in Issue 20
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