Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 8-11
As I walked toward
Her house, the one whose
Porch light burned yellow
Night and day, in any weather.
- Up until this point, all we knew was that the speaker was out for a walk on a very cold day with a couple of oranges in his pocket. Now we know where he's headed: "Her house." He's on his way to pick up the girl mentioned in line 2.
- The speaker gives us a little description of the girl's house—well, not the house really just the porch. It seems this family is in the habit of leaving their yellow-y porch light on "night and day."
- This seems like a strange detail to mention, right? That means we should probably consider why Soto includes it.
- Do you like riddles? No? Tough. We do, so here goes: What is yellow and burns and has something to do with weather? Anyone, Anyone? If you said "the sun," then you are bright, indeed (sorry). Anyway, the way Soto presents the porch light image makes it sound kind of sun-like.
- How did he do that you ask? Using the verb "burn" helped. "Burned," along with the words "yellow" and "weather" makes for a pretty sunny picture. If you throw in the orb-like shape of a light bulb you've got a mini-sun burning 24/7 right there on that girl's porch.
- On a figurative level, all that luminosity seems tied to how our speaker feels about her. From the speaker's perspective, the sun never sets on this girl.
- This guy has it bad. He could be standing in a downpour, without an umbrella, in the middle of the night, and if he was thinking about this girl all he'd feel was the sun's warm glow.
Lines 12-15
A dog barked at me, until
She came out pulling
At her gloves, face bright
With rouge. I smiled,
- Imagine yourself in the speaker's position. You're standing there in the cold. There's a dog barking at you.
- You're bound to be feeling a little nervous. And then that person you are just crazy about shows up and suddenly everything is okay.
- The girl comes out, "pulling / At her gloves, face bright / With rouge."
- The line break after "face bright" makes us recall for a moment that sun imagery from the yellow porch light.
- Until our eyes drop down to the next line, we don't know that her face is bright, "with rouge." Whether her face is bright from make-up or some internal sun-like glow doesn't really matter. Either way, the speaker is stoked to see her.