Margo Solod: Two Poems
Trying To Steal Home | But This Is Now

Trying To Steal Home

That final base, named
as if home were a treasure worth stealing,
a place you'd want to run to, an end
in itself. Home, full circle from where you started
unless someone on your side strikes out;
leaves you dead on second base. Halfway there
without a hope of going further, all that talent
wasted. It's a team sport—why
are you running alone, trying to out-race
the ball speeding at your head,
ducking the gloved hand coming at your face
as you dive towards that sharp-edged
illusion of safe? And then the tag,
that final blow that lets you know
the game is over; and you
are still alone on that
endless walk to the showers
that takes you right past home
but never lets you stay.

But This Is Now

There was a time, before
she was her father's favored child
when she'd look straight at anyone,
answer any question honestly,
even "how are you?"
When she attended slumber parties
and played Truth or Dare,
smiled without a hand
shielding her mouth.
There was a time she thought
she'd be an actress, before
she became an actress
all the time, back when
the screams that woke her
in the night belonged
in someone else's mouth,
not hers.

Poet's Biography:

Margo Solod has been an innkeeper, chef, lighting designer and factory worker to support her writing habit. After 20 years of traveling, 3 chapbooks, 80+ published poems in 50+ magazines, 3 trucks and 9 sets of tires, she has settled in the middle of 72 acres in the Shenandoah Valley of VA.