Poet Mueller and Painter Delvaux, "The Village of the Mermaids"

Lisel Mueller

Paul Delvaux: The Village 
of the Mermaids

Oil on canvas, 1942

Who is that man in black,

walking 
away from us into the distance? 


The painter, they say, took a long time


finding his vision of the world. 

The mermaids, if that is what they are 


under their full-length skirts, 


sit facing each other


all down the street, more of an alley, 


in front of their gray row houses. 


They all look the same, like a fair-haired 


order of nuns, or like prostitutes 


with chaste, identical faces. 


How calm they are, with their vacant eyes,


their hands in laps that betray nothing. 


Only one has scales on her dusky dress. 

It is 1942; it is Europe,


and nothing fits. The one familiar figure


is the man in black approaching the sea,

and he is small and walking away from us.