Anansi Boy / Jung the Baptist
He came crawling down
the river, all brown and muddy
from maintaining the subaltern poise:
a moderator whose name means
everything, to those who know the signs —
the commentary is appropriately fleeting, and very uplifting.
The questions very precise.
It's hard enough as it is to be repeating
the old adage that to learn
is to decolonise.
Jung knew he would be here.
That the world was very much in for a surprise:
despite some people's best attempts,
the Dragon has become a true test of one's eyes.
If he is 170cm,
and brown,
and Kristang,
and only found
on a very tiny island
where Sundaland once drowned;
should this really come as a surprise?
After all, the legends, while abusive,
are Bene Gesserit-designed;
they take truth,
and wrap it up in tropes
selected carefully to hide
conditions. Roles and rubrics
that the Singapore government
would probably recognise
as very well thought out.
Over here?
We don't really care about the particular species of sand-trout.
We only ask
for a good leader.
Someone who not only really cares,
but isn't a pedophile or an asshole,
and about whom there is no doubt
that he will get the job done.
So weird bizarre quasimystical prophecies begone:
the Makaravedra of the Fifth Mundansa
undoes his own fucking sandal straps,
and doesn't wear sandals.
He only has just enough money,
and all of the universe's undeniable rationality
to be just as Jung secretly wanted:
gay, and non-binary, and atheist and therefore very, very Kristang.
Anansi's last and greatest goodbye stands up.
Spider and sun do not disappear:
they simply become
a good boy.
A very human ploy
by the universe,
in the long run
to make sure life goes on.
It must annoy
you to recognise
that after 2,000 years of locusts and honey
you really ended up with exactly the right kind of once and future quing
instead of rook, castle, wazir, alfil
or pawn.