Before the same strange house,
many nights in a row.
And a light begins to stir in your belly that says
you were on this street before, but
they called it by another name.
It shows you the turned up stone where
you once fell and your blood
left a small horseshoe of a stain,
and the hundreds of people
who have lived in that house, and passed
over the front walk so many times
the stones became smooth.
And from each of their bellies,
there’s a burning, soft glow too, that calls
to the light in your belly.
Calls it by name. They discuss you,
how those streetlamps are burning for you.
Jin Cordaro received her MFA in creative writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming inFaultline, Sugar House Review, Main Street Rag, Flywheel Magazine, US1 Worksheets, and Cider Press Review. Her work also appears in the anthology “Challenges for the Delusional.” She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and the recipient of the 2009 Editor’s Prize from Apple Valley Review. Born in the suburbs of Detroit, Cordaro now resides in central New Jersey with her husband and twin daughters.