Excerpts from Unsettled Oranges by Billie Hutching Maciunas

Photo by Hollis Melton

Faithless domain
of heavy lassitude
the vertiginous
thrust of some cooing
expectation

she speaks
     drowning, eh?

she speaks of slow settled
drowning in the daystream

Brilliant panoply of professional
momentum
took two baths
today and still
stink the voice of
irreverent instinct




my vision is the magic sword,
vision of lusty bewilderment
she wonders how the points
meet without touching

no merit has granted
her reprisal from
the immense trill
captured inside grand piano

no fey insight of doom
remanded her flexible
fingers in the art of
playing Couperin
and viewing
the unclassifieds
through her kaleidoscope.


Unsettled Oranges