The Bricklayer’s Lunch Hour

Four bricklayers are setting the walls
of a squatter toilet in place of the old
squatter toilet that collapsed a week ago
on a sunny hutong street in north
Beijing. It is noon and three of them
wander off. The newcomer who joined only
today, has none of his own tools and so
smoothes wet mortar with a screwdriver,
flinging it sloppily to the ground and half
the time missing the plastic bucket entirely,
buys a bowl of rice and pork from next door
and a bottle of beer from a man selling them
off the back of a bicycle truck. Sitting
on a wall across from the toilet he eats
quickly, holding the bowl so close to his
face he hardly seems to lift the chopsticks.
He wears plastic flip-flops that dangle
from his toes beneath oversize black dress
slacks rolled up nearly to his knees and cinched
tightly around the waist. When he’s finished,
he drops the bowl to the ground, unscrews
the cap from the beer and drinks it in two
large gulps, the liquid dripping down his bare,
shallow chest in lines that cross through the lines
where dust has settled and dried to his sweat.
He belches softly. When a gray kitten approaches
the nearly empty bowl he kicks the bowl
out of the way and kicks over and over again
the air surrounding the puss. Then he climbs
into a hobbled wheelbarrow, drawing his legs
up against his breast, but as soon as he shuts
his eyes a black car with darkened windows
speeds down the narrow road and the driver
slams his fist down on the horn. By then
the other men are returning to work, and he
awkwardly crawls out of the wheelbarrow
and walks back to his spot, laying brick with a
screwdriver, flinging the excess mortar
to the ground, half the time missing entirely
the plastic bucket. It hasn’t rained in weeks
and meanwhile, meanwhile, meanwhile
the occasional gust seems to wane before
it has a chance to blow through the honey
locust trees lining the block only sparsely.