Amy Barone

The G Spot

Once a mecca for gals, guns, gambling, and gold,
now ponderosa pines and Victorian homes

flank the steep road to Mt. Mariah Cemetery
where we salute Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok.

Survivor of three major fires—
the place never became a ghost town.
It had a theatre, Chinatown, and hardware store.

During the Black Hills Gold Rush of 1876
the Lakotas lost this land to settlers—
gold mining carried on until 2002.

The last brothels closed in 1980
and in 1989 gambling became legal.

Far from home, tourists sort through wood carvings—
gnomes, animals, frontier heroes—
digging for gold in Deadwood.

 

Amy Barone’s poetry collection, Defying Extinction, was published by Broadstone Books in 2022. New York Quarterly Books published her book, We Became Summer. She belongs to the Poetry Society of America and lives in New York City.