actually, at the turn of the stair

by Sarah Maclay

The phrases that appear as titles, and many of the additional italicized phrases within these poems, are drawn from HD’s 29th poem in “Tribute to the Angels,” the second part of her Trilogy.

But this is the one she needed—this visitation, this vision,

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     a presence, a wing—not a real wing—

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a sense of light: sound of sun burned through the moon

          (gentler than anything she could now imagine):

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something beyond violence

     and something beyond violence to self—

          beyond the feeling, even, of being in her own legs,

though that was streamingly intense now.

     She wanted something beyond all spectrums

she had ever known. What,

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          anyway, is light?