So much of this country’s goodness faces
the water. The doorless café. The white faces

of clocks. I keep a sixth-floor room, 
notching up lagers with the expats, facing

weak spliffs on the roof. It’s a life. I try to hit
two pages by noon & when I fail, I wash my face

& head to the market, throwing paper where 
the noise curdles like milk, where the pinched faces 

of the vendors, those uncles hawking fake
Audemars Piguets, look nothing like my face.

To see the seedling as the son of the tree 
is unscientific. Once, my mom faced

a small fine for smuggling bougainvillea cuttings.
She wanted her first country’s flowers to face

her new country’s sun & was ready to pay
for it. These are the only times I see her face

in mine, these strange & stubborn currents
she rides. You have the language & the face,

the hostel owner tells me—why not make a life here?
The dollar is good. The women wear the faces

they are born with. He uncaps his beer by mouth.
I dive to the bottom of my thirst before surfacing.

What else is there to say? I am me, a man 
named after men. I wear their bravest faces.

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