Ghost writer

in memory of John Trelawny

You were slimmer, yes, and smaller

and your guttural growl restored

to before the cancer stole

the plums from your voice.

But then you were dead, in this dream,

returned to work on a piece of writing,

leaving its completion

to Nick Hornby and me.

I wouldn’t have been your choice,

and Nick Hornby unlikely -

you would choose a writer of seafaring yarns,

smugglers’ stories - but dreams have their own rules.

You were once told by our tutor

that you were a writer of popular

fiction, whilst I aspire to the literary,

working and reworking.

You wrote reams each week,

self-published, marketed,

sold and moved on. But now

you want me to edit your oeuvre.

Nick Hornby sits silently

throughout your visitation,

then half-smiles and stretches his arms,

his hands spaced the length,

breadth and depth of a box,

not visible, substantial,

and he lays the gift at my feet:

the secrets to completing

another man’s work;

the secrets, in fact,

of writing.

Nick Hornby nods,

leaves, and you dissolve,

John. I am left with the box.

It’s hard, the writing,

the rewriting,

the carrying on.