Break-of-dawn memories melt away in the midday sun;
the smell of secret sex under a pink mosquito net sunrise fades,
along with the faint fragrance of orange juice kisses
(twenty percent morning rays),
kidnapped,
and tortured into injecting the entirety of their lip-smacking
(eighty percent) sugary fumes
into the Styrofoam engines of fire ants’ pirate ships
(no skull-and-bone flags— more of a holy basil, chili, and garlic motif,
suspended above the tips of a broken and bloodied toothpicks)
that float away over waves of cooking oil and litter,
over pavement cracks
filled with glass-brown-bottle-blood of last night’s fights,
sealed by the foam of sacred sewer lies
that whisper fragments of truth
into the holes of rusted manhole grills,
down into deep, dark waters
where beady-eyed beasts
and masked babies
feast.