We have very little concrete information about the speaker, other than the fact that they are embarking on an underwater dive to investigate a shipwreck. However, even this aspect of the speaker remains ambiguous, given the possibility that the dive described in the poem may be symbolic. Regardless of the literal or figurative status of their dive, the speaker is clearly alone in their endeavor. They indicate as much in the opening stanza, where they compare themself to the famous French underwater explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Whereas Cousteau has his “assiduous team” (line 10) of eager assistants, the speaker is “here alone” (line 12). The speaker stresses the solitary nature of their descent again in lines 41–43, where they describe having to adapt to the increased pressure of the underwater environment:

     I have to learn alone
     to turn my body without force
     in the deep element.

The speaker’s emphasis on their aloneness echoes classical heroes like Odysseus and Aeneas, both of whom made perilous solo journeys into the underworld. In this sense, the speaker positions themself as a heroic figure.

Yet once they reach the shipwreck, the speaker’s identity becomes stranger and more ambiguous. In lines 71–73, for instance, the speaker describes themself as having a dual nature:

     This is the place.
     And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
     streams black, the merman in his armored body.

The speaker’s identification as both “mermaid” and “merman” suggests a sense of androgyny that breaks down the traditional dualism between masculine and feminine. The speaker’s identification as a creature that’s half-human and half-fish additionally indicates a form of hybridity that situates the speaker more firmly in myth than in reality. The “mythic” nature of the speaker’s hybridity may initially seem to echo the mythic nature of Greek and Roman heroes like Odysseus and Aeneas (see above). However, the speaker continues to emphasize the internal bifurcation in their identity, ultimately shifting from the first-person singular “I” to the first-person plural “we.” In lines 87–94, the speaker appears to adopt a universal perspective in which “I” and “you” become a more capacious “we”:

     We are, I am, you are
     by cowardice 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.

In these lines, which close the poem, the speaker adopts a plural perspective on behalf of all those individuals who, unlike the epic heroes of classical antiquity, have not appeared in “the book of myths.”