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.