dairy queen

there is no wrong way to eat
a hot dog there is no right
to eat a dog there is no hot
dog hot popsicle of pig
meat slathered in existential
ketchup bread-claustrophobic

*

         once on a drive home from Central Catholic
         I stopped at the Dairy Queen Drive-Thru
               and asked for hot dog wrapped in lettuce
               I was more hypochondriac at sixteen
               than at thirty-two anyway the kid
               at the window said they couldn’t
               but I insisted and the manager
               smuggled the long sizzling dog in wet
               lettuce I carry that shame in the trash
               bag of my trunk to this day

      pig meat
                       pig meat
                                     in a sleeping bag of green

        there is no way to eat a dog
        there are ways to eat a hot dog
             I am a bog I am the bog I am
breakfast lunch dinner brunch midnight snack
  everlasting bun communion holy
water life I down through days and lick my fingers
after rough vigorous handwashing
             I’ve opened plastic package
             set skillet to flame
             lain logs on drizzled oil

the celebrity chef in my mind
is me I documented cooking when I lived
in my car. That was my true potential. Oh, swine,
you’re years beyond capable
yet I drove halfway across the country
to do what competitors do, which is down
hundreds of you. Joey Chestnut the undisputed
master after decades of dogs.

*
                    Went to a dollar dog minor
                    league game twenty cents per dog flies
                    buzzing in orbit of condiments
                    five the limit at the window so all
              could see I had the buns. One each for
                     STRENGTH. ACCEPTANCE.
                        CONFIDENCE. GRACE.
                                   AMBITION.

One inning was all
it took and I was alone in my new
                        city full of my father’s love
                        of baseball and barbecues. Now
                        there was an undisputed grill master.
                        Everyone knows one. I am not one.
                        There is no way to cook.
                        There is a way.
               Wayne was over and we flicked
               lit matches with our middle fingers
               from thumbs into ready
               charcoal to get the grill going.
We walked away and waited for
an action-movie explosion
but there was no ignition.

My whole life I have been walking
away, not turning back to look.

(originally published in HAD, Summer 2022)

It is eighty-two degrees in Pittsburgh and my trunk
is crammed so your DQ cake sits in the passenger seat,

moves the same speed I do in my car in this orbit
in this galaxy. There is so much matter to keep cool

in the universe, but there’s sunshine through my wind-
shield and you– I know– thaw as a passenger beside

me. I’m doing what I can: aiming all the frigid vents
that way, holding a folder to shade you. I drive fifty-

five in a thirty-five to avoid my mind entertaining a
milky flood mixed with dust, dog hair, cookie crumbs,

and lust pooling where you are, your name in icing
illegible– it’s fine, for now. Don’t freak out. I am

floating over a bridge, the sun forever taunting,
and soon I know you’ll go, in one way or another,

into the mouth of a thankful person– whether me,
trying to save you from this heat, or you, radiant

as the sun, seeing celestial bodies who– for at
least this rotation– you know revolve around you.

(originally published in Dodging the Rain, Spring 2020)

James Croal Jackson

Poet / Editor

Hog