Breakfast Before Mr. Olympia, 1975

They were nice
to ask you to join them—Mr. & Mrs.
Ferrigno, and
Lou.

Over coffee,
and egg-white omelets,
you told him he’d be perfect
with one more month
of training.

Grinning,
you took what he’d built
for years in a Brooklyn
basement with concrete buckets
for weights,
his barbell a broomstick.

You told them that
you had already called your mom,
to tell her you had won.

It became known as
Machiavellian,
a masterclass in
psychological warfare,

but Lou was tired,
still waking up after
a restless night thinking

about the two of you,
together on stage.

The Pump

Blood rushing into your muscles,
like someone blowing air
into your pecs. Your pecs
squeezing together
like butt cheeks.

It’s like having sex
and cumming.

Life can be heaven for
a bodybuilder—
cumming at the gym,
cumming in the bedroom,
cumming while
posing onstage in front of
5,000 people.

Mr. Olympia is always
cumming, and
he is always at the apex
with his head
in the clouds.





Drew Buxton is a writer from Texas. His short story collection So Much Heart won the 2024 Sergio Troncoso Award for First Book of Fiction. His work has been featured in Southwest Review, Joyland, The Drift, and Vice, among other publications. His debut novel Daytona Teddy Riggs will be published by Hub City Press in the fall.

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