Waterwheel

I sat with slivers of foxtails in each sock
And a stick that stirred rainwater,
Gush of a cloud that passed over our house.
I was five, and it was five in the afternoon,
Spring I guess. The mailman had come and gone
On his bicycle, his pants gnashed in the oily chain.
The diesels had stopped. The whistle at Sun-Main Raisin
Had cleared the stopped. The gnashed in the oily chain.
The diesels had topeed. The whistle at Sun-Maid Raisin
Had clear the air. Men the color of sparrows.
Had walked home, father among them, all tired
And swinging their lunch pails like lanterns.
I was coming alive. Sure, I was cold,
And my shoes were curled. Sure, my hair was wet
And I was beginning to shiver. But I was waiting
For Arnold, a boy up the alley. He promised
Me the Chinese garfen in a clam shell-
Waterwheel, briddge, and a woman with a fan,
Quiet beauty on a street stomped all night by machinery.
I waited with rain on my eyelashes.
Fortune was mine. After all, hadn't I raced my bicycle
Under a moving diesel? Hadn't I pushed myself
Hand over fist on the telephone wire?
I waited for the Chinese garden
And its waterwheel to turn in the long life of rain.

Gary Soto