Dog Day

Joey Chestnut
on July 4th 2010
tries to eat 70
of Nathan's famous hotdogs,
makes 54 in ten minutes,
retching like a goose,
shaking as he pushes
the franks down into
his esophagus
with gulps of Kool-Aid,
folding the buns in half
and pushing them after,
soppy and pink.
His head inflates
like a red waterballoon
as he jumps on the spot,
face full of slop,
dough and chewed beef.
His shorts are speckled
with sugar and grease,
but he keeps going
on and on, decades
of dogs and buns,
the competition is still
gorging in the shallow end
in Nathan's T-shirts
like giant bibs,
the minutes crawl by,
agony, gutachingly
crashing like Titanic into
the colon of the afternoon.
The sun dips, the crowd
roars over the countdown.
Joe Chestnut grimaces
against the gag reflex.
No mustard?