Alice and Bob want to defend against ballistic missiles and data breaches. They’re going to need a conventional clock and a length of rope to encircle it. Is this how interpretation works? Some poets use hermetic machines to launder their desires. I have just such a crystal key; I compress its symbols into a nucleus. It is forbidden to write it on a scrap of paper. Pin tumblers and torque wrenches interleave their textures inside a cylinder. As with any relationship, there is an intimate cryptography of surface and depth. I found a brass key on the sidewalk. Since it was not mine, I tried it in the nearest door. No. Since it was not mine, I left it there and dreamed about it for years. Was it yours? We agree on a primitive root and a modulus. Raising your generated sum to the power of my prime number generates an irreversible horoscope, provided we use an antique pair of dueling pistols. Alice writes, “The star-tree illuminates its lunar matrix.” Bob responds, “Percy’s bifurcated heart will become its own brilliant container.” Somehow the message was hacked. The shame of hermeneutics. An inviolable sequence of letters and numbers, never to pronounce their sound or even see them. It is forbitten to write it on a scrap of paper.