Acquaintance Poem by Taslima Nasrin

As much as I had thought of him to be a male,
That much he is not;
Half-neutered he is,
Half a male.

A life goes by,
And you may sit and lie with a man,
but how much can you come to know a real man?
He whom I so long thought
I knew -
He whom I know is nothing like that,
In fact, he's the one I most don't know.

As much as I had thought him to be man,
That much he is not:
Half-beast he is,
Half a man.