Don Marquis mehitabel dances with boreas

On a hibernal note, a cockroach types, regarding his friend Mehitabel the cat:

well boss i saw mehitabel
last evening
she was out in the alley
dancing on the cold cobbles
while the wild december wind
blew through her frozen whiskers
and as she danced
she wailed and sang to herself
uttering the fragments
that rattled in her cold brain
in part as follows

whirl mehitabel whirl
spin mehitabel spin
thank god you re a lady still
if you have got frozen skin

blow wind out of the north
to hell with being a pet
my left front foot is brittle
but there’s life in the old dame yet

dance mehitable dance
caper and shake a leg
what little blood is left
will fizz like wine in a keg

wind come out of the north
and pierce to the guts within
but some day mehitabel’s guts
will string a violin

Don Marquis (1878-1937) wrote free verse poetry that was said to be typed by a cockroach who did not have the strength to work the caps key. Many of the poems included mehitabel, a cat who in a previous life had been Cleopatra.