the line (revised)

what it means to be a sinner:
i suppose

it's not answering the phone when your sister calls, from Texas,
because you're busy thinking about someone else's man;
and glancing around near your feet for the line
that marks the crossing:
here I'm thinking wrong
here I'm doing wrong,
as if there were a difference.

suppose that Janus were the God of choice, or even just
the Pope;
this sinning-by-numbers,
and the difference between right and wrong no more complex
than the line where one county meets the next.
suppose our boundaries in common,
and we could meet there, you and I, like
neighbors
leaning on the fence --

whereas the word is not so easily fooled;
forget the law.
it's the song, as Stevie Smith once wrote,
and Christ the singer,
the one-hit-wonder of all time.
the song you woke up with, chipping away
at your transgressions.

so sinning goes on anywhere the song can reach;
and like a certain acid sinks to bone,
so does the sweet truth of your crime;
and someone else's man can feel it too,
as does your sister in Texas, right now:

the wound, desire --
the song that binds the wound;
and the thin red scar of longing for him
anyway,
a cross on the palm, an incision
in the heart.