Jawbone

When the principal himself at the residential school for autism
where you bathe live learn eat play please God are loved
calls my cell, I happen to be away from it. He speaks in an even tone.
I am upstairs pouring coffee comfort ritual routine into a blue mug.

A pretty co-worker comes into the kitchen, skirts me silently,
retrieves something from the fridge, and walks away. Invisibility.

My mother has just dropped me off in beginning-of-the-rain grey
after together we'd ushered my suffering sweet Sugarpuss into Sleep.

I return to my cubicle, place the coffee down I am holding my breath
and on the cell phone a red light blinking blinking his area code

I dial into the voice mail it takes me two times, I hear Jonah is okay,
I hear significant incident hear how they tried to redirect him, keep him walking.
He was violently aggressive he needed a two-person takedown;
he likely hurt someone. More than one someone. Surfacing to bite.

Born of me who hated hitting, shrank from violence, submitted every time.
Weak and yet I grew a wild white whale inside my womb, Ahab be warned.