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 sway into this threadbare beauty the ribs of the disaster curving their assertion among the tentative haunters. Ostensibly Adrienne Rich is talking about exploring a shipwreck, but really she is talking about any courageous act. To look squarely at an uncomfortable truth--to reject a comforting myth that has grown around and on top of the truth. ("The wreck and not the story of the wreck.") Rich the explorer implicitly identifies with "the drowned face always staring toward the sun"; Rich is a divided self, looking upward while drowning. ("Her wounds came from the same source as her power.") Something wrecked can also be "assertive"; something threadbare can be "beautiful." This is part of a poem I love; it makes me slightly more curious and ...