This is the only poem I wrote while visiting Turkey in September of 2016. I wrote it on a Sunday. Then I stayed in Turkey, and I left on that Wednesday. At the airport in Konya I went through a security checkpoint at the main entrance, and later I went through another to enter the terminal. Security personnel asked me to take both cameras out of my bag and release the shutters, to which I complied. They then performed a test designed to detect explosive material on each of my rolls of film. I made it out of the country with no complications, except that I hadn’t realized I was to be served a complimentary meal on the flight, so I had already eaten.

When I had first arrived in Istanbul, the customs agent had said to me, in regard to my passport photo: “You’ve changed.”

Then I had said to him, “Yeah.”