Ed and Winnie Etgen on wedding day
November 19, 1944
Liberal Army Airfield, Liberal Kansas
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ dry ink on yellowed license—November nineteenth~ their pressed gardenia still perfumes the cedar box where Mother enfolded time. eighty-one springs fade: the cake, the vows, their laughter— dust motes tremble as my thumb traces father’s smile bleeding through the license. no ghosts haunt these walls, only the scent of camphor and one stubborn thread~ Mother’s lace unraveling from the hem of forever.
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