God’s Happy Hour

When you reach the end of Andrew’s Brain,

You’ll find that last ghost of the story,

How this is his redemption. It’s not,

You know, and the simultaneous

Presence and absence of redemption

Is what permits the ghost to haunt you.

Then one day, years later, along comes

A short essay from the granddaughter

Of Andrew’s author, from which you learn

That on the day he finished Andrew,

He poured a vodka soda on ice,

Said finishing was one of the two,

Three great moments in a writer’s life,

Then wandered into the other room

To watch football. Now you have two ghosts

Haunting you, both composed of phrases,

One a fiction, talking to himself,

The other his contented author,

One of the lords of fiction, dead now,

Relaxing, watching a football game,

Leaving Andrew to twist in the brain.