who are never seen, but in the morning your glistening stains are there, vulgar unencrypted glyphs in crimson and vermilion, bleeding adjectives in trickling rivulets down crumbling brick.

You move invisibly; squeeze poetry from stones, earth, flesh; out of trash cans, cardboard boxes, abandoned basements, sewer grates; through night alleys with silent spray cans, unlicensed stanzas, lockstep meter; publishing on boxcars, buses, bridges, buildings.

In the rooms of decrepit buildings, you gather daily to train, recite the alphabet backward and forward in seconds, write in complete darkness, memorize dictionaries.

When necessary, you ration a single poem so that it lasts for weeks, having disciplined yourself to read only a word at a time.

You are even capable, some fear, of unlocking encrypted text; freely pirating newspapers, textbooks, bus schedules.

How will they break