Waterwheel--Gary Soto 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. -- I'm nobody! Who are you? How dreary to be somebody! Are you nobody, too? How public, like a frog Then there's a pair of us — don't tell! To tell your name the livelong day They'd banish us, you know. To an admiring bog! --

※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 68.4.13.249