:

His face has changed but not his voice,
I’d recognize it anywhere:
a rowdy bar; a quiet prayer.
‘Hold on’ he’d said when carrying Joyce
through flames and smoke then through a door
he’d left in bits across the floor.
And when they hit the air outside
it kissed their cheeks as they unhinged:
alive but more than slightly singed.
The magazines were right: they hide
the scalpel’s path; it’s never seen;
these guys are hot: surgeons I mean
who work in plastics: building treats
from overdone barbequed meat.