THE WORLD IS NOT MASCULINE

Dano Chow

hitherto modern man has only reiterated
masculinity, sowing enlightenment
upon man who do not ask for it

as in the first dealings between man
and sultan
knowing full well common man cannot
become sultan

white man constructs a narrative of lazy native
labels them coloured
man who must prove their worth
to him

coolie suffers colonial man in the building
of railways
becoming other man occupying
unmarked shallow graves

unfashionable imperialism makes man grant
a colony independence
reactionaries attain populist dominance, subjugating
even more

civilized master sets the gay man free,
and so?
fatwas prosecute the maknyah for everything she is
and will be

meanwhile the last emperor he, stripped of his divinity
after re-education rests
even farther
beneath proletariat man

now man has decided to remove the mask
of historical class
suffering man who don
a deathless middle

this man acknowledges and practices
a placative feminism
how else would man claim the other
called woman?

this man writes a narrative that all human beings
matter
for man to riposte that some matter
more
than others

this man avows the pronouns of
he, she, him and her
whilst man forget how radical it was for Bartleby
to prefer not to

this man preaches the manufacturing of more
zero-waste products
man consume even more, absolving themselves of a soon
antiquated guilt

but if guilt no longer reaches man, is he at all
permissible?
we forget that the original answer from Eden, was also
created
by man

behind the mirror of man is a world
not shaped in his image
the world itself is not masculine.

Author’s note:

‘Maknyah’ is the Malay vernacular term for trans woman.