Memorial Daguerreotype

—Nov. 1, 1862 Camp Nelson, Arkansas

It seems every hour you hear a volley for some poor boy ruined by fever— but worse is the dream of sister these eighteen years dead, her likeness kept polished on the mantle, upright among the living, likeness I clutched so tightly father had to pry it, fearing fearing for the only 'type we possessed: Delia propped in white on a loveseat, holding black roses. The spot leaked from one nostril seals her half-shut lids, always. I wake suffocating, cannot retrieve her face— but the heart fashions a likeness from light, from when she held me, making a soundness here, past words, I hold to surely as another saves his girl's letter in a breast pocket, or as the boy luck-wounded stays whole by touching the minié ball tied around his neck.