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      February 10, 2015Hannah Faith NotessWater Under World

      That river had me marked
      as soon as I drifted underground.
       
      I palmed the coins from my eyes
      and leapt from the raft into dark water
       
      as cat-eyed goddesses watched me,
      whirring their displeasure. From fog
       
      a young god emerged and gathered me
      against his body, dripping, onto the bank.
       
      Of course I worshipped him. Of course
      I should begin again. Eighth grade:
       
      I wanted a shirtless lifeguard
      at the waterpark to see me, so I leapt
       
      from the flotilla of plastic innertubes
      into the waist-deep canal, where spotlit
       
      mummies craned animatronic necks.
      He came. He rustled, furious,
       
      from a plastic hedge and banned
      me from the Lost River
       
      of the Pharaohs for life. No Nile.
      No Underworld. Cast out,
       
      sunburned, that night I drifted,
      thought of diving, as the waves kept
       
      rocking me, like hands
      on my shoulders. Now I could die
       
      because a boy had held me and
      his anger made him warm.

      from #45 - Fall 2014

      Hannah Faith Notess

      “I’m a post-evangelical Christian who landed in the peace church (Mennonite) tradition. I take pleasure in the intersection of religious language and regular language on the page. If faith is ‘the evidence of things not seen’ (Hebrews 11:1), then being a person of faith means I’m always trying to figure out what it means to live in two worlds—this world and some unseen world, whatever it looks like. For instance, a cheesy waterpark ride could become a gateway to the underworld.”