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Memorial Day Wedding
North Carolina, 1946
by Doris Lynch

Only their landlady came, Mrs. Priscilla Taylor
accompanied by her friend, Miss Amanda Chase.

Both wore white stacked heels, flowery bonnets (petunias)
and satin gloves. They oohed and aahed when Marie

and Joe said yes. Daintily clapped as the couple
kissed although they both insisted later that it lasted

thirty seconds too long, but that's how them Marines are,
Mrs. Taylor said knowingly; she ran a rooming house

through the war years at Camp Lejeune. When the couple
stepped outside into the New Bern sunshine, they thanked

the Marine priest for marrying them on his holiday,
then shook the gloved hands of their witnesses, leaning away

from any heavy perfumed embrace. After sharing some
celebratory beers at a café by the New River, they climbed

Mrs. Taylor's hardwood stairs to the Cornice Room
on the second floor. That afternoon they conceived

Rosemary though neither suspected such a fusion
in the first passion of their married love.

 

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