Annotations for Speaker: Patricia Smith

Thank you.

I can't remember it now.

Clash, Clash of the Titans.

Not the new one, not the new one, but the one with the fighting skeletons and all that stuff.

You know, the bitch goddess probably got a real kick out of that.

I'm sure I'll be hearing from her.

She'll give me nightmares for a week or so; that I can handle.

Or she'll turn the water in my well into blood;

I'll scream when I see it, and that'll be that.

Maybe my first child will be born with a head of a fish.

I'm not even sure it was worth it, Poseidon pounding away at me like a madman, losing his

immortal mind because of the way my copper skin swells in moonlight.

Now my arms smoke and itch.

Hard scales are rising on my wrists like armor.

Come on Athena, he was just another lay and not a particularly good one at that, even though he can spit steam from his fingers.

I won't touch him again.

Promise.

And we didn't mean to drop to our knees in your temple, but our bodies were so hot and misaligned.

They will try on new teeth, they will realize their own regiment.

They mourn.

Each releasing a soldier's name to the wind.

And there will be forever a need for armies.

Kwame Dawes.

You know,