This simple sauce: twelve blueberries,
water, vanilla (no, I'm not going to tell  
all my secrets!) was everything I have
learned about celebrating frugality.

A red-headed woman, my young mother,
shining elegantly at a cocktail party
in a dress made by her
own delicately beautiful,
strong hands.

One three dollar silk remnant,
purchased in a little shop full of
cardboard boxes, each bursting,
to overflowing with fabric, and
texture, and color, high up on
Upper Broadway, in 1961.