the shape of a wraith made
from discards and swatches
fabrics cuttings pasted down
with starch and layered paint
but swept up by a whirling
gust and backed by paper
a random crumpled page
the typed words barely legible
but which as Corbett said
were what was under and
above and behind everything
we did a page that could be
almost any first draft a mistake
a wrong turn tossed out and
salvaged from the trash bin
given a role and new purpose
as the literal platform the stage
for this dance of what looks
like a kite of enormous wingspan
its reddish shape shifting
like a cloud on fire or fired
from within stoked by
spirits of the good offering
a glimpse of the would be
journey into the empyrean
and beneath it a long rope
hanging down a person at
the end holding on and letting
go a could-be anyone of us
caught in mid-flight uncertain
whether at this instant when
the arms and hands ache
so much and feel so weak
that this is the moment when
you descend into your life
or have already left it behind
in memoriam, William Corbett, 1942-2018
Salamander, 18-19