My Mother's Purse

by

Helen Symes

My mother had an old flowered purse.
She kept her letters in it.
It was a twenties purse
And we children of the forties
Found it a secret hideaway.
My dead brother
Who never was
Was mentioned there
In a letter from my father
before he was my father
And I
The new boy to be
Was born a girl.
Later
My mother had four more
Five girls in all.
I will not speculate on what or who my brother would have been
I just wonder why my mother did it?
Not have him, that is
When later she married and had us.

The purses of today are thrown away fast.
They are made of plastic and don't last.
The purses in my nineties closet
Hold no mementos, old letters or old cards.
Those that I kept
Are sealed in a small box
In the Main and Higgins Mini Storage.

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