<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><p class="MsoNormal">Building With Its Face Blown Off <br><span><br>How suddenly the private <br>Is revealed in a bombed-out city, <br>How the blue and white striped wallpaper <br><br>Of a second story bedroom is now <br>Exposed to the lightly falling snow <br>As if the room had answered the explosion <br><br>Wearing only its striped pajamas. <br>Some neighbors and soldiers <br>Poke around in the rubble below <br><br>And stare up at the handing staircase, <br>The portrait of a grandfather, <br>A door dangling from a single hinge. <br><br>And the bathroom looks almost embarrassed <br>By its uncovered ochre walls, <br>The twisted mess of its plumbing, <br><br>The sink sinking to its knees, <br>The ripped shower curtain, <br>The torn goldfish trailing bubbles. <br><br>It’s like a dollhouse view <br>As if a child on its knees could reach in <br>And pick up the bureau, straighten a picture. <br><br>Or it might be a room on a stage <br>In a play with no characters, <br>No dialogue or audience, <br><br>No beginning, middle and end- <br>Just the broken furniture in the street, <br>A shoe among the cinder blocks, <br><br>A light snow still falling <br>On a distant steeple, and people <br>Crossing a bridge that still stands. <br><br>And beyond that- crows in a tree, <br>The statue of a leader on a horse, <br>And clouds that look like smoke, <br><br>And even farther on, in another country <br>On a blanket under a shade tree, <br>A man pouring wine into two glasses <br><br>And a woman sliding out <br>The wooden pegs of a wicker hamper <br>Filled with bread, cheese, and several kinds of olives.</span></p><br><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>- Billy Collins <br clear="all"></body></html>