Building With Its Face Blown Off - Billy Collins

[Larry Robinson]

Building With Its Face Blown Off 

How suddenly the private 
Is revealed in a bombed-out city, 
How the blue and white striped wallpaper 

Of a second story bedroom is now 
Exposed to the lightly falling snow 
As if the room had answered the explosion 

Wearing only its striped pajamas. 
Some neighbors and soldiers 
Poke around in the rubble below 

And stare up at the handing staircase, 
The portrait of a grandfather, 
A door dangling from a single hinge. 

And the bathroom looks almost embarrassed 
By its uncovered ochre walls, 
The twisted mess of its plumbing, 

The sink sinking to its knees, 
The ripped shower curtain, 
The torn goldfish trailing bubbles. 

It’s like a dollhouse view 
As if a child on its knees could reach in 
And pick up the bureau, straighten a picture. 

Or it might be a room on a stage 
In a play with no characters, 
No dialogue or audience, 

No beginning, middle and end- 
Just the broken furniture in the street, 
A shoe among the cinder blocks, 

A light snow still falling 
On a distant steeple, and people 
Crossing a bridge that still stands. 

And beyond that- crows in a tree, 
The statue of a leader on a horse, 
And clouds that look like smoke, 

And even farther on, in another country 
On a blanket under a shade tree, 
A man pouring wine into two glasses 

And a woman sliding out 
The wooden pegs of a wicker hamper 
Filled with bread, cheese, and several kinds of olives.


	- Billy Collins 
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