COLLEGE REUNION

        It wasn’t till our 40th I learned
        my roommate, Tom Kubota, in the War,
        with all his family, had been interned
        in Idaho.  He’d always kept that door
        shut tight.  Seattle born but Japanese
        in lineage, considered then a threat
        to our security, such families
        as his were seized and often left in debt.
        For all of that, what we his roommates knew
        of Tom was someone gentle, puckish, kind
        and deferential to a fault, one who
        would never boast the keenness of his mind.
             In Kyoto later, an Olympic scheme,
             he designed the quarters of the US team.

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