Regulated heavy-petting, severed metal jukeboxes of the new platoon. Orations in the streets, on their knees; women hanging from street lamps, their shoestrings dismantled, clothing sifted through for every karat of worth, then the shoes stuffed on- bare naked bodies and tangerine blossoms came through the Eastern air. One of them coughed something, not in English. Each of them riddled through with decade-old grins, as if from a childhood game of cops and bandits.

Every part of my trust in her body, a knot made of plastic in a reel of film strung from her shoulders. A gunshot emptied her stomach, its bang echoed cerise colored paint.