Wanda Swim Strunk (Iowa)

August is the dying month
When hot July struggles to keep her hold
Moving toward a hopeless chilled September
Pretending to be summer
As if children heading back to school stir the cold from the sky

It is a refined deceiver

August is a butterfly crushed on a roadway
One side dead to the pavement
The other is still vibrantly flutteringly alive
Fighting to fly away but it’s fate is already sealed

It is a delicate executioner

August is the month colors trickle from trees
A first leaf unnoticed tumbles
Sheepishly the others will shortly follow
Shamefully they will drift to the ground

It is a subtle destroyer

August is 6 PM
The disillusion of a day realized
Dinners to be eaten alone
Murky dark mixes with the daylight
Spitting out gloomy gray

It is a sophisticated betrayer

August is the death rattle
Demise by means of a Fall
Stealing gaped mouth last breaths
Swallowing everything into its earth
Coughing back a cold winter in return.