RUTH FAINLIGHT reads "Handbag"

My mother's old leather handbag,
crowded with letters she carried
all through the war. The smell
of my mother's handbag: mints
and liptsick and Coty powder.
The look of those letters, softened
and worn at the edges, opened,
read, and refolded so often.
Letters from my father. Odour
of leather and powder, which ever
since then has meant womanliness,
and love, and anguish, and war.
~
From "Fifteen to Infinity"

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Thank you

[@reaganwiles_art]

I absolutely relate to this. As a child though. Breathing the neglect and loneliness añd desolation of several generations.