From the Quotation of the day mailing list, 2014-01-23:
...In the pewter mornings, the cat,
a black fur sausage with yellow
Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries
to get onto my head. It's his
way of telling whether or not I'm dead.
If I'm not, he wants to be scratched; if I am
He'll think of something. He settles
on my chest, breathing his breath
of burped-up meat and musty sofas,
purring like a washboard.</i>
-- Margaret Atwood, from her poem February.
(submitted to the mailing list by Terry Labach)