Testimony

Caki Wilkinson

Numbed up from rum and slushies, smoking bowls
in a friend’s friend’s backyard, time’s a minor chord
the night keeps playing. Dude, we need to go,
we say, but don’t. We’re good at being boredin front of everyone. But cross our hearts,
the worst we ever feel is incomplete,
just texting, checking Tinder, taking shots
for an album called More Pictures of Our Feet.It’s August, nothing left to talk about
but June, when we were tan, and got along,
instead of laughing at the girl who’s not
our friend or year—just some dumb stumbling pawnthe night keeps playing. Dude, we need to go,
we say, then get the liquor from our trunk.
We can’t remember having so much fun,
though most of us are almost way too drunk,just texting, checking Tinder, taking shots
of three guys showing off a halter top.
Numbed up from rum and slushies, smoking bowls,
we never wonder should we make them stopinstead of laughing at the girl, who’s not—
who’s passed out, galaxies away by now,
in front of everyone. But cross our hearts,
it makes us sick, or will, admitting howwe can’t remember having so much fun;
that’s just the sort of muddle summer was.
It’s August, nothing left to talk about
but what will happen after nothing does.

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Caki Wilkinson is the author of the poetry collections Circles Where the Head Should Be (2011), which won the Vassar Miller Prize, and The Wynona Stone Poems (2015), which won the Lexi Rudnitsky / Editor’s Choice Award. New work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Yale Review, The Nation, Crazyhorse, and other magazines. She lives in Memphis, Tennessee.

The Hopkins Review

Spring 2018

Baltimore, Maryland

Johns Hopkins University

Editor in Chief
Dora Malech

Senior Editor
Kosiso Ugwueze

Managing Editor
Phoebe Oathout

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