The Mermaid
quell’amor ch’è palpito, del-l’universo intero
They met at sea, but she can’t quite remember
all the details of that night (a story scribbled
then forgotten in the notebook of a mediocre writer)
Do people meet one another only to forget?
Shells they gathered… scattered at the bedside
beautiful as… scales scraped off the ocean’s back
bits of coral that weathered lava, hurricanes, tsunamis
and sun, now lying stiller than anything in her hand
Between sky and sea they loved each other
a pair of wet bodies in the cabin, rocking with the waves
like plants just learning to breathe underwater
clinging, then releasing: gentle petals
Was that really love? They were just figments
of themselves, drawing near – where is she now, little mermaid?
Vanishing like foam into the water? Her tail parting
as she steps onto land? He gets up, goes to the bathroom
The basin’s landscape hangs rigid in the window
but come evening it will melt, and with the passing
centuries, millennia, aeons, it too will be sea
(cold and blue, shapeless, unrippled, unending…)
then, they really will be like glittering spray
scattered across the universe
About the translators
Austin Woerner is a Creative Fellow in Chinese-English literary translation at the University of Leeds.
Zhang Fan is an MA student currently studying English Literature at the University of Leeds School of English.