Eventually, the bankruptors take everything

After the war, Matthew Brady found the thirst
for grey lads in the poses of the dead
dried up. Not surprising. Having seen
a hundred horses in a heap, who would want
to look again? The country turns to portraiture.

"Mr. Brady," said his assistant, proudly, "all but invented
battlefield photography." "Indeed," said the sitter -
one of the Astors, and she never came back.
Who wants their stiff face passed through glass
that has seen ghosts? Even spiritualists balk.

The stacked glass negatives - the posed and formal
dead, the real dead in their undone rapture -
are sold to glaziers. Not suitable for windows,
of course, but greenhouses - the boys of Anteitam
cast softening shadows over banks of ferns and orchids.

____

Blame Gary. He said there had to be a poem in here somewhere. Who's Matthew Brady, you ask? True story about the greenhouses.