City Hall updated the municipal code:
Every good deed gets a line-item fine.
You breathed the dust to pull out the dead?
You’ll pay for it on the instalment line.

Twenty-five years of compounding interest
on lungs full of glass and pulverised stone.
The city takes pride in its braves and its best,
then leaves them to choke on the bill alone.

No good deed goes unpunished here.
We honoured your courage, we praised your name;
now sign the ledger and cough up the cost,
’cause the house always wins at the mayoral game.