Lisel Mueller
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Paul Delvaux: The Village
of the Mermaids
Oil on
canvas, 1942
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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.
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