Greenhouse
  
"The late nineteenth century was a time  when
people were still trying to forget the Civil War.
Many of the million photographic glass negatives
that recorded the great conflict were used to build
greenhouses."

No need to imagine shapes hidden
In these clouds,
An iridescent orchid
Takes as its shadow,
The ghost of a boy's form
Crumpled in a meadow.
Fields of limbs jinxed
Cast calamity
Onto a pair of work gloves
And leaves tracking sun.
The boy is long forgotten,
But here in this glass canopy
Of panes insane,
The hands his mother loved so
Glow
And reach for blossoms.

Laura Stickney


Civil War photograph from PBS documentary, The Civil War,by Ken Burns

Quotation from Philip B. Kunhardt, Lincoln, Knopf, 1992