Touch Wood

‘Touch wood,’ he said and rapped my forehead with
knuckles knotted as a blackthorn branch. Rough
hands, no more subtle than shillelaghs, that
grew a garden full of flowers, tall as
a small boy in short trousers, humbled by
the bees; all dirty knees and careless as
a summer breeze. When it became too much
to tend, he laid a lawn and expended
what remained of strength in moving his divan
downstairs. I pushed a mower up and
down for hours, striving to cut stripes as straight
and perfect as I could. What I hoped to
hold behind green bars of grass, I could not
comprehend. But it meant something – touch wood.