I have learned, at last, to appreciate 35 degrees,
not as an intrepid explorer on the world’s smallest Everest,
but as a middle-aged Dad,
the happy remnants of several good meals lining his waist,
his dog pulling him past the melting white lumps on the sidewalk,
not as an achievement,
not as an overcoming,
not even as the manageable dissonance on the way to back to true home,
but as right now,
this place,
and the day in which I live.