Diving into the Wreck

by Adrienne Rich

    First having read the book of myths，

    and loaded the camera，

    and checked the edge of the knife-blade，

    I put on

    the body-armor of black rubber

    the absurd flippers

    the grave and awkward mask.

    I am having to do this

    not like Cousteau with his

    assiduous team

    aboard the sun-flooded schooner¹

    but here alone.

    There is a ladder.

    The ladder is always there

    hanging innocently

    close to the side of the schooner.

    We know what it is for，

    we who have used it.

    Otherwise

    it is a piece of maritime² floss

    some sundry³ equipment.

    I go down.

    Rung after rung and still

    the oxygen immerses me

    the blue light

    the clear atoms

    of our human air.

    I go down.

    My flippers cripple me，

    I crawl like an insect down the ladder

    and there is no one

    to tell me when the ocean

    will begin.

    First the air is blue and then

    it is bluer and then green and then

    black I am blacking out and yet

    my mask is powerful

    it pumps my blood with power

    the sea is another story

    the sea is not a question of power

    I have to learn alone

    to turn my body without force

    in the deep element.

    And now： it is easy to forget

    what I came for

    among so many who have always

    lived here

    swaying their crenellated fans

    between the reefs

    and besides

    you breathe differently down here.

    I came to explore the wreck⁴.

    The words are purposes.

    The words are maps.

    I came to see the damage that was done

    and the treasures that prevail.

    I stroke the beam of my lamp

    slowly along the flank

    of something more permanent

    than fish or weed

    the thing I came for：

    the wreck and not the story of the wreck

    the thing itself and not the myth

    the drowned face always staring

    toward the sun

    the evidence of damage

    worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty

    the ribs⁵ of the disaster

    curving their assertion

    among the tentative haunters.

    This is the place.

    And I am here， the mermaid⁶ whose dark hair

    streams black， the merman in his armored body.

    We circle silently

    about the wreck

    we dive into the hold.

    I am she： I am he

    whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes

    whose breasts still bear the stress

    whose silver， copper⁷， vermeil cargo⁸ lies

    obscurely inside barrels

    half-wedged and left to rot

    we are the half-destroyed instruments

    that once held to a course

    the water-eaten log

    the fouled⁹ compass

    We are， I am， you are

    by cowardice¹⁰ or courage

    the one who find our way

    back to this scene

    carrying a knife， a camera

    a book of myths

    in which

    our names do not appear.