Every year, August lashes out in volcanic fury, rising with the din of morning traffic, its great metallic wings smashing against the ground, heating the air with ever-increasing intensity.

Rollins’s sentence personifies August as a violent, mechanical creature—“volcanic fury” fused with “metallic wings”—to convey the oppressive, escalating force of late-summer heat in an urban environment. The “din of morning traffic” suggests a city day beginning as usual, yet the month’s heat feels like an assault that rises with that routine noise. The imagery of wings “smashing against the ground” evokes heavy, repetitive impacts (like heat waves or industrial clamor), while “heating the air with ever-increasing intensity” captures the sense of cumulative pressure: each day compounds the last. The effect is both sensory and psychological, framing seasonal weather as an adversary that dominates mood and bodily experience.