The speaker of the poem acts as a passive bystander who catalogs the recovery efforts of a war-torn community. Speaking with an ironic and sarcastic tone, the speaker observes the immense physical labor required to rebuild everyday life. Though highly aware of the carnage and the lack of media attention, the speaker remains detached and does not directly intervene in the reconstruction.

Referred to only by an anonymous pronoun, this figure represents the everyday citizens left to clean up the devastation of war. They perform grueling manual labor, dragging girders and rehanging doors to restore basic infrastructure. Stripped of identifying features, they embody the unglamorous human cost of war that occurs largely out of the public eye.

Functioning as a stand-in for the news media, the cameras seek out photogenic violence rather than the slow process of recovery. They capitalize on public fascination with active combat, then quickly depart once the initial shock value fades. Their rapid exit ensures that the localized struggles of the surviving population remain undocumented.

Appearing later in the aftermath of the conflict, these individuals represent the people who inherit the rebuilt world. They lounge in blissful ignorance on top of the vegetation that conceals the physical scars of the past. Disconnected from the trauma of the war, they view discussions of the historical conflict as dull.