Tear Down

Yesterday the house next door came down;
It couldn't have taken twenty minutes.
Someone must have taken pride in its going up, fifty years ago,
Slowly, stick by stick,
Bricks laid, nails hammered into place.
I remember it as almost new,
Walking by, catcher's mitt in hand.
Now parts of the histories of five families
Lie hidden in the rubble:
Outcroppings of twisted pipe,
The head of a child’s stuffed animal
And a couple of cans of soup, unopened, abandoned,
Prey, like bricks and beams, for the speculator's bulldozer
I walk around the broken boards and think
Of reputations, wealth and marriages,