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This poem is taken from PN Review 226, Volume 42 Number 2, November - December 2015.

Brady’s Studio (and other poems) David C. Ward

Brady’s Studio: ‘The Dead at Antietam’

Photographs of the battle
dead had a ‘terrible distinctness’,
horror fused in the clarity
of the new imagry

the gallery crowds
scarred yet flocking to it
unable to look away
the reality of war
the camera caught KIA

with pockets turned out
looted, shoes and socks stripped off
faces contorted
(We regret . . .  your son
              Maryland campaign  . . . painlessly
              . . . he didn’t suffer, at peace,
...


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