11. The Potamoi
The Potamoi
My brothers looked a little like me.
Some were born with ivory bull horns
or with the golden tails of fish.
Others had bodies made of sea rock.
Some even had sharp fangs
and looked even more serpentine than me.
Yet while my features were considered
graceless, or even, as I had overheard
an unkind aunt say, Styx is so unsightly,
I had noticed how differently
my brothers were treated.
Despite their strange features,
no one whispered about their horns,
their tails, their coarseness.
It was only after they were born that I realized
that even though I was merely tolerated
for looking nothing like the vivid-eyed,
elegant beauty of my mother and aunts,
my brothers were celebrated
for their peculiar features, which were nothing
like the light that exuded from my father
and all his many brothers.