At Last

I told him I hope to be a poet. He said he hopes, someday, to scale a mountain, to stand at the summit with ice and empty air burning his lungs, and scream out over the land spread like an ant farm below: “Fuck you, world! I’ve beaten you at last!” I said I feel that way, sometimes, on those mornings, when my shower runs cold and my alarm blares fifteen minutes late, but outside a spear of sunlight punctures a raincloud, and a poem coalesces in my brain.