Sting

[Todd]

A couple minor comments for your consideration:

Edit 1.03

The stars pulsed alive that night
when I tore her cheek on the door nail,
tussling over pink panties. --No issues in this strophe.

The dawn broke, bringing our buddies home.--The dawn broke is a pretty common phrase. Condensing to "The dawn brought our buddies home" or something like that might make the phrasing more interesting.
They howled as the bitter sun rose,--Bitter is a pretty telling comment. Any way to convey the idea in the image without using the adjective directly. Howl is an interesting word since you usually see it associated with the moon.
warming impatience.

Reluctantly I waved goodbye,--Reluctantly feels like an easy choice here. It is telling. Try to capture the idea in the action itself or the tone. Being able to remove most adverbs tends to improve the poem. I think even simply cutting the word with no other changes would improve the line. That said, you may need to work a bit to add reluctance into the gesture. Just thoughts. 
and watched her dissolve into--dissolve would make a much better line break. It's just stronger than a weak word like into. 
the sweltering midday fumes
of memory.

Hope some of that helps.

Best,

Todd