Beijing
David Huntington

A technician has been
smashing and mending
my air conditioner for
six weeks. I’ve become
accustomed to the
thwapping of window
cleaners’ ropes. Four
graduates are scraping
gum off a forty-story
rooftop. Dust is
in the air. Awaiting
the cementmen to
finish the furniture,
our elderly till the
sidewalks for sorghum.
The middle classes
attend the walls
with sandpaper.
Children sweep. Dust
is in the air. When
it rains we shelter
behind the Coming
Soon barriers in the
mall and barter raw
materials. On the
fiftieth story I
awake to squeegees,
to the far-off affluence
of trowels and picks.
Three young women
replace my floorboards
one by one. “What’s
the news?” I say.
She says, “the market
for improvement is
improving. Hope
is in the air.”