In the wee hours of the dusty morn,
a hero lurks the alleyways of old Beijing.
He has the body of the Spartan and the face of a ghoul.
His eyes and cheekbones seem chiseled from granite.
shirt and pants are torn asunder and streaked with every oil, chemical, paste and sauce imaginable.
With his big rusty shovel he scoops load after load from the piles of waste
left in the corridors of the alleys he moves through.
Scoop after scoop,
he hoists them into his makeshift three-wheel chariot.
Then he rides off down the dank passageway towards the next monstrous pile,
disappearing into the morning’s grey.
Perhaps in the old days,
trash was not so varied and wonderfully troublesome.
Yet in the Beijing of 2009,
it can take the form of just about anything.
From eggs to tires, from Christmas lights to dish detergent,
from giant brick piles to dead cats;
the garbage man must conquer them all.
Using his trusty shovel he divides and scoops, hoists and plops.
Each backbreaking cement block,
each nauseating pile of rotten foodstuffs,
all thrown in the pile together,
he must outmaneuver.
And come daybreak,
all is gone.
The galactic mess that each household managed to accumulate over the course of just a couple days
is now gone.
The streets are empty of rubbish.
The curb is dry.
Sellers are bustling about once again hawking their pineapples or magazines,
the remnants of which will soon be awaiting the garbage man’s shovel once again.
There are no dumpsters here.
Just piles waiting to be scooped.
sniff sniff Mmmmmmm. I can almost smell it.