There’s chaos in suburbia when the school bus
runs only even five minutes early on the second
day of school and parents and children alike
wear mild panic in bright colors like first-day
clothes with hidden tag-ends still scratching the neck.

By year’s end a missed bus will be commonplace, wash-
faded and comfortable, and resignation over just
one more missed opportunity becomes
sweatpants and house-slippers dragging back in to locate
keys and on good days a quick swipe of a comb
before buckling the future into a booster seat and
driving across town to wait impatiently
in the long line of idling cars.