The SeaShell Coin Purse

After Nana died

The only thing I got was a little coin purse

While aunties bickered over jewelry and recipes

I slipped into her bedroom and looked at her bureau

There were beads

Broken bits of necklaces not being fought for

And old curlers she had slept with in her white hair

And one little coin purse hiding amongst the life-rubble

It was tan

The color of sand, covered in assorted seashells

When I unzipped it, I found some coins and bobby pins

But also one bullet of red lipstick that I promptly uncapped

She loved it

When she was alive she had worn it every day

Always leaving behind lip prints on well-loved cheeks

The color didn’t suit my seven-year-old freckles as it had her

Mom found me

Standing in front of the vanity with the purse

She didn’t wipe the lipstick off or scold me for taking it

“Would you like to keep that?” She tapped it and I nodded

About the Author

Emmalee Gagnon is a nineteen-year-old author who is currently an English major with a concentration in Creative Writing at Arcadia University. She has completed three novels, one of which has been completely edited with her writing mentor and freelance editor, Patty Zion. Emmalee was the youngest person to ever be selected to attend the New York Pitch Conference, and had the opportunity while there to have her work critiqued by editors and agents. She has won multiple poetry and short story contests, has three poems published in the anthology POETRY, and one in Pennsylvania’s Best Emerging Poets.