Hannah Englander

Prints

Mom was singing It’s Raining Men in the pool
When she told me that we must try to find God through art.
She didn’t want to get out even though it was raining,
And when lightning struck nearby she shouted “Hallelujah!”
She stayed in the storm until the next day.
Her fingers shriveled into bunched fabric and the print on them was erased.
She told me she would always be able to find me by my fingers,
But I worried that she wouldn’t be able to find herself.

Grandma used to say that everything was Grandpa.
A bird feather floating amongst trash on the beach or a butterfly that circled our heads.
I thought his body must’ve turned to dust that turned into the bug,
That maybe that was what art meant and that was who God was.
I wondered if it was his fingers that turned into wings
And Grandma recognized his prints.
How else could she have been so sure?

We never prayed before eating or went to church regularly,
But I used to whisper them on planes, or when I saw speeding cars,
Or when we passed graves.
My brother said that his friend said you have to hold your breath
Whenever you pass the dead, or else they’d take your soul for themselves.
We used to lock our hands so tight,
So that they wouldn’t be able to separate us from each other.
I used to try to feel the groves in his fingers to be sure he was still with me.

Grandma’s a painter.
She’d take pictures of the hydrangea that Mom grew in pots
And in her studio she’d remake the flowers as she saw them.
She turned a blank canvas into flowers that had long since died.
My Mom and her sung Grandpa’s favorite song,
And put the flowers into a new frame.
With black ink they stuck their fingers onto the back of the canvas
As their way to join art,
And outlast themselves.