When I step up to the detector, the agent asks me

where I am going as he retrieves my passport.

 

He looks up when I say Tehran,

extends his arm, his palm opens like a retractable claw,

 

little barbs against my chest, wait. And as the other

passengers stare at this public switch from unbothered to alarm,

 

he guides me away from them and to another, down corridors,

who pulls me into a nook somewhere in this airport,

 

and I think dignity when she digs both hands into my hair

and scales my scalp. From dignitatem, as in,

 

state of being worthy, as in, my being is something

worthy in this state, and I think collar when cold gloves

 

crawl down my neck. From kwel, as in, that

on which the head turns, as in, my head is turning,

 

my head is spinning to the guess of what flesh

will be unearthed next. And when she parts my thighs,

 

pries each leg apart from the other to scour the length

of each one, I think ankle, from ank or ang, as in, to bend,

 

and I remember that angosht is Farsi for finger,

and angolak, for fingering, and I flinch when she yells

 

to quit shaking, so I stand still like a stem

in a windless field, pretend my blood

 

is circulating smoothly, like water reaching my roots

neatly, my roots keeping me anchored so I don’t fall over,

​

and I imagine I am better planted by my own feet

than dangling thousands of feet in the air,

​

that turbulence makes my soles flick out their tongues,

desperate to lick the unmoving ground; and when she is done,

 

she tells me not to move. It will be a while

until my baggage is cleared. And I think baggage,

​

from the Farsi boqčeh, as in, a bundle,

as in the excess baggage we haul before we reach

 

our destinations, as in, how many times a day

does this agent utter baggage;

 

maybe a hundred times in the same snarl

that carries the history of our words in her mouth.