"...only mere men."
The narrator of the poem is describing how small his race is, contributing to the theme of the poem. In the scheme of things, an individual person just seem like a "mere man", but when everyone is brought together, things can be achieved more easily.
"I don’t know
if humankind understands
culture: the act
of being human
is not easy knowledge."
Further enlightening us on the personality of the narrator, we see that he thinks he is a bit different from everyone else. He explains that he can see that humankind is different in the ways it can harness its knowledgeable powers, as they may seem, and not everyone can understand that grip. Being a human is not easy to do, simply stated, and the narrator tries to explain that by giving examples of how the things we view as simple are, in reality, complex.
"Plastic handcuffs. Practiced manner. Efficiently done."
The author uses this literary style of stopping sentences short and giving brief explanations of the character to help explain his characteristics. Above, you see "practiced manner" and "efficiently done", both written as independent sentence fragments. Yet, subconsciously, this helps to prove the point that the author is trying to bring to us readers, since we view short, explanatory fragments as "practiced" and "efficient".
