To those who scrawled the crude blue spray-painted letters on the neighbors' garage door

People say this is gang-work
coded territory marking
like the piss of a great blue cat
who stalks the night with latexed fingerprints
pawing at our thresholds

Look, I've seen the street art
I've seen the mural on the high buildings
like a flowing flag planted by Sir Hilary
worked by those who will climb in the dark

but this is sick, stick lines
like a cave drawing
lines like those of a child

how old are you?
I wonder as I watch the neighbors paint
the white that doesn't quite match
the last coat why it is that I scrawl these letters now
as garish, quick, and simple,
though touching no one's door nor causing comment

your code says to me
"this is our territory, we make it so
from not our own," you and I together
will recognize it with our foolish deeds
with these good houses no more to us than signposts
for our mighty solipsy.