Consider July a smelling salt
to rouse your faint year
from sleepwalking,
startled nostrils finally
snort in this year’s bouquet.
Ponder the steam of August
melting towards September,
yellow school bus dinosaurs
prowl the morning roads
to ingest reluctant morsels,
cool shoes and backpacks
the last whiff of freedom
down institutional hallways.
Daydream out windows
to speed the fall towards winter,
when freshness of balsam
collides with peppermint,
swiftly down to a new year
and another round.