Harvard

My Mom And Dad Could Not Say Goodbye, 1963

I left for Harvard as an immigrant
Admitted I knew for sure by mistake
Because cut of another cloth and flesh
I had no blanket against cold I felt

Only my Olivetti portable,
With compressed Italian elegance
I did not know what I would write or if
But I had finger tips and instrument

I was stranger to myself, immigrant
As well upon unwritten pages' me
Unsure what might qualify as a clue
Beginnings of an inward alphabet

I hardly spoke, my bafflement complete,
Me incomplete still sixty years gone by