Ec(h)o-Terrorist by Derek Graf
Associate poetry editor Maggie Finch on today’s bonus poem: Derek Graf’s piece is both beautifully surreal and grounded in concrete emotion. This poem is the vivid dream you struggle to comprehend when you finally wake up. Readers will be running with the language until the leap of the last line.
Ec(h)o-Terrorist
In the dream I jumped from Glen Canyon Dam into the jaws of a rabid coyote. In the dream I woke up screaming beneath a bale of razor wire in the bed of a pickup somewhere in Texas. Somewhere in Texas, there’s a new Macdonald’s under construction next to the gas station next to the Wal-Mart next to the vape shop next to the outlet mall next to the hotel next to the hotel next to the hotel. My brother disappeared in the bright water beneath the south harbor in Corpus Christi, yes, and my mother lives forever in devotion to his drowning. I live in devotion to the bullet that does not land in the coyote’s stomach. I live forever in the fall from Glen Canyon Dam, the bright water beneath.
Derek Graf's poems have been featured or are forthcoming in Portland Review, The Journal, Salt Hill, and elsewhere. He is currently a PhD student in creative writing at the University of Kansas, and he completed his MFA at Oklahoma State University. Earlier this year, he joined the Charlotte Street Foundation in Kansas City as one of their 2019-2020 Studio Residents.
