Because there is a life in the body and the hope of a hereafter,
taking a life is a sin, a term meaning "denied God's grace,"
the condition of human aloneness and separation before redemption.
Of course "taking a life" can mean forcing generations
to work in the coal mines of Kentucky because no other job
promises anything like a living wage. Maybe the body
is what the owner class in America uses against the working class,
let's go ahead and put it in those terms, and say that sinners
come in all shapes and sizes, though we're a lot quicker to judge
the transgressions of the poor as weaknesses or flaws,
than, say, the Satan who shows up with lawyers and bodyguards.
In Appalachia, they called those who came to the deathbed
to perform rites of purification the "sin eater"—because these accepted
the transgressions of the dying who could then rest in peace.
The sin eater's last task was to eat the crust of bread placed on the chest.
The life-and-death world was in the bread. I guess the act arose
from looking hard at a death, any death, and thinking, I'm afraid too.
They could hardly be blamed for believing we require help
to shovel and load the forlorn coal of self, the unusable portion,
so that we might leave this body unburdened by our failures.
My grandfather worked in a mine until he got up one morning, dressed,
breakfasted on biscuits and gravy, and started up the hollow
to where a Red-shouldered Hawk sat. Stone-still. When it lifted off,
the hawk, he told anyone who'd listen "That was all she wrote,"
meaning he turned and walked back to their row house as one converted,
all his unrighteousness exploded in a fit of wings at first light.

for James Riley