Peter Fong
A Pedestrian at the Straits (Tangier)
The morning rose blue in that order, as if Zeus’s son had again raised heaven’s globe from earth. For a moment, the light seemed to wink at us, between pillars, glimpsing what’s to come. Some say Hercules pulled our two continents together, others that he smashed the conjoined mountain, and Atlas, newly unburdened, fled to the cemetery of the sun. But few look these days to the tomb of the west. Instead we seek north for our graveyards, while the south labors to stop our eyes with sand. When the rains won’t come, we think it only what they deserve.
About the writer:
Peter Fong’s work has appeared in American Fiction, Gray’s Sporting Journal, the New York Times, and many other publications. Fong’s first novel, Principles of Navigation, won the 2012 New Rivers Press Electronic Book Competition.
Image: Young Ladies on a Terrace in Tangiers by Rudolf Ernst (1854-1932). Oil on canvas. 71.2 x 92 cm. Mid-1880s. Public domain.
