Mother Testing Exercises

What happens when I catch myself
there on the boat after dark?
I will be halfway to
the golfcourse where I will not
sleep with anyone.

My friends will one day wake up
with grass in their shorts and the rings
of trees branded on their tongues,

but I'll come pick myself up and drive me home
down the Belt Parkway.

My hair will be caught around a candybar cellphone after midnight
on the Staten Island ferry.

An aquarium of bones sits waiting,

but I'll never see it; just cover the receiver of the landline
and try to keep from laughing
because

I'm the voice on the loudspeaker telling everyone
we're about to dock.

My mother won't know why I'm not talking
she won't see me at all.