MAUI BANYAN

by Amy Barone

Home to chatty mynah birds, you flank 
the Old Lahaina Courthouse by the ocean
 
on an island of sugar cane hills, Hana sunsets,
historic red wood buildings and Ka’anapali Beach.
 
Stretching nearly two acres with 16 trunks,
cousin to the fig tree, hub for Maui’s
 
huge Halloween party and costume parade,
you star as stage and shelter for natives and tourists.
 
A century and a half old, now survivor of brutal wildfires 
that charred cars and an enchanting town that I first visited
 
as a wide-eyed teen on vacation, marveling at your vastness, 
that paradise exists in an old whaling village in the USA.

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 wrote chapbooks Kamikaze Dance (Finishing Line Press) and Views from the Driveway(Foothills Publishing.) Barone belongs to the Poetry Society of America. She lives in New York City.

SWIMMING ON THE MOON

by Amy Barone

ESA via MIT Technology Review

A yellow ribbon of angst floats above.

During the lockdown, some spent days

baking bread, while a friend nearly starved

to death—driven to the ER by fear and seclusion.

 

A magnet for benign and wicked misfits,

I pull a mask over distress, pluck thorns

from my sides, and spend fitful nights

asleep with people still in my system.

 

Now that water’s been spotted there,

I think I’ll head to the moon for a swim,

embrace lunar life off the grid, get revived

on a smooth intergalactic ride, as I wave goodbye

to bugling elk, dazzles of zebras, and dozing cuttlefish.  

Amy Barone’s poetry collection, We Became Summer, from New York Quarterly Books, was released in early 2018. She wrote chapbooks Kamikaze Dance (Finishing Line Press) and Views from the Driveway (Foothills Publishing.) Barone’s poetry appears in Local Knowledge, Paterson Literary Review, Sensitive Skin, and Standpoint (UK). She lives in NYC.