Sunbathing in Eternity
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They lay in slabs upon the slaband the suncould not quite reach them.At the earth's rim:seabefore a distant foreign shore.
Along the shore,sand sanded from the slab,slid into the sea,returned to the sun,dried like salt at the marsh rim,crusted among them,
ridged between them,shoredthem up in drifts, rimmedthem in permanence, in slabsof stone worn white beneath the sun,which rolled and snapped like sails across the roiling sea.
Until one broke ranks and walked into the seaand all among themraised their heads in the sunto watch her stroke for the far shorebeyond the slabof blue at the planet's rim.
Umbrella rimslike hat brims hung above the seacut their view to slabsof sand sea sky, framed them [End Page 72] where they lay along the shorestruck now by the sun.
The sunwas what they came for—its outer rima wheel upon the shore,a wheel against the wheel of earth and seagrinding thembetween, like steel upon a slab.
Then the sun fell to the seaat the day's rim, drew themsanded from the shore, left no one on the slab. [End Page 73]
LUCY BUCKNELL is a senior lecturer in the Film and Media Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University.
