Before I Was a Savage
Kristin AbrahamHe knew there would be problems, since this was the beginning, frontier. But “it smelled like the end of something.” Those were her words, once, before she was stolen. And she was right, right and she knew it, proved it over and over: stomped a lot of foot and tossed a lot of hair, smugged up her face like a cat with a mouthful of feathers and accused: dead horse there, bloated dog here, rattler in the trough. Misery comforts misery, he knew, and it expanded mostly in dust storms, the way the laudanum ran out before the next trip to town. She missed the circus—new beginnings every two days—the way he threw knives while she spun on the wheel, sent her into memory. She died differently then. And yet, every time her foot planted—a new carcass, turkey vulture, worms in the meal—the questions were evident: “What makes us so stitched together?” “Why do my reasons pour out?” The answers, he kept telling her, must be yet.
Issue 12
Minority vs. Majority
Fall 2010
Features
Nonfiction
The End of the Rainbow
Christopher Jenner
Great Afro-Americans in History
Faith Adiele
Excerpts from the Daily Rumpus
Stephen Elliott
Poetry
Pee Bar(dom) and Bailie
Garin Cycholl William Allegrezza
Before I Was a Savage
Kristin Abraham
Life in Necropolis: Four Letters
Candy Shue
Mississippi Delta
Dilruba Ahmed
Market Is Stumbling but You Don't Have To
Danielle Blasko
The Choice Between Someone & Somebody
Kristin Abraham
The Other Side
Dilruba Ahmed
Acceptance
Rich Ives
Fiction
Girl in a Suitcase
Cassandra Passarelli
If It Hasn't Already
Jamey Genna
Lemon
Jennifer Spiegel
Chimera
Donna Laemmlen
Paved
Joseph Celizic
Dancing Pink Roses
Danny Bracco
Feeding the Animals
Amy Bitterman
Small Talk
Brian Martin
Art