Fatima's Teeth

By Robert James DeBurgh (Poet)

She lies beside me, spreadlegged on the bed.
Her eyes are closed, her hair is henna-red.
The skin of Fatima's thighs is brown,
Like unto the terracotta roofs above the town
Of Tiblisi, in Armenia, where once I met
A ponderous Jew, one Shmuel, off whom sweat
Poured in greasy globules.
He was talking to Runyon, who is dealing in rugs,
And while they are walking along the dusty road,
An ass dropped dead outside Gulbenkian's Cafe,
The one with the bougainvillea hanging, There, I have done!!

Alexandria 1887

NOTE:
This is definitely one of The Master's more obscure Works. He starts by describing his lover's charms, then moves in rapid succession to, the roofs of Tiblisi, a sweaty Jew, a rug dealer, a dead donkey and finally, a bougainvillea vine!
Upon reading this Work, B. Svertlovich tore out what remained of his hair trying to understand the connection between all these apparently unconnected themes and the title "Fatima's Teeth".....
Some years later Prof. Mukerjee advanced the theory that DeBurgh was experiencing the onset of an Episode of the Extended Descartes Principle thereby producing the apparently random jumps in "train of thought".
After hearing Prof. Mukerjee's theory, B. Svertlovich smiled happily and went in search of a wig.

NOTES ON PROVENANCE:
This piece was discovered much folded and wedged behind exposed plumbing in the bathroom of a rather seedy dockside hotel in Alexandria in 1910.
No-one knows why it was there.
However, upon it's removal, the plumbing rattled in a most disturbing fashion...