I thought of Hephaestus’s bashful assurance that no one could ever want him. I thought of Hermes feeling like the background in his own stories. I thought of Eros spurned by love when he was meant to be one of its incarnations. And now Ares, so set in his role of furious warrior that he couldn’t admit to his subordinates or his peers that he was the opposite of how they all saw him. I washed him in return and went to kiss his lips, to settle in his lap in the warm water.
