Muscled, black with steel-green eye

swishing through the rye grass

with thoughts of mouse-and-apple pie.

Tail balancing at half-mast.

...And the mouse police never sleeps ---

lying in the cherry tree.

Savage bed foot-warmer of purest feline ancestry.

Look out, little furry folk!

He's the all-night working cat.

Eats but one in every ten ---

leaves the others on the mat.

...And the mouse police never sleeps ---

waiting by the cellar door.

Window-box town crier;

birth and death registrar.

With claws that rake a furrow red ---

licensed to multilate.

From warm milk on a lazy day

to dawn patrol on hungry hate.

...No, the mouse police never sleeps ---

climbing on the ivy.

Windy roof-top weathercock.

Warm-blooded night on a cold tile.