Monday Mimisms ~ Mama's Lipstick

It was the purses

and maybe because I never got to see her things....

or know the name of the last lipstick she used

or pick up the hairbrush from the oval tray in her bedroom

and brush my hair with the combs of life left from mama

perhaps it was the lingering smell of giggly laughs

we tossed about

on summer days of shopping

 'round the thrift markets

the way she would bid

the way she would fight

for what she wanted

and laugh

when she got

what

she

wanted

The roses were lovely

in the market today

on the face of the painting

she would have loved

so I fought

and I bought

it

thinking it was for me

when it really was for her

"I know that box," she would have said.
"Pick it up, my girl, and we will take it home to our treasure pile." 

Oh, how she would have loved the Lillian Vernon pink. And the lining. And the way it fell from her slender shoulders, prancing around in the store of trinkets like a Queen sitting high on the Nile with no one to judge and no one to care. I picked it up three times and felt the silk way down on the inside before I put it in my basket. There was something about the way my hands knew the cloth. Inside the deep well of the purse I felt my mother's hands..only realizing later that's why I kept picking it up and putting it down...so much like our complicated way with each other 

so I bought it

 thinking all along it was mine; when all along, I knew it was hers. Always hers.

She loved purses

and priss

and me

"Isn't that print just the finest? she'd say. "I know just where I'll put it and it matches the roses in my garden. The ones on the bush you gave me for Mother's Day that's grown so tall and full of you, my girl. I think of you and pray for you when I see them bloom," she'd say.

So I bought it

for me

And I gave it

to her 

And no one would believe - not even I - that she had shopped with me today

Until some time later

 in the evening

when I needed her in a moment of pain

 for no reason I can logically explain

 she knew

and she came

into my room

carrying

this perfumed

purse

 and all the exquisite days with her

came flooding back with her presence

 and it no longer mattered what lipsticks

she left behind

and suddenly I remembered

a kiss

placed on my lips 

by my mother

on the day I was born

It was the shade she wore

and 

I

will

 always

always

wear 

it

    

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