The Second Crumbing

Turning and turning in the bubbling fryer
The cruller knows no crueler hour;
Buns pull apart; their centers are not holed;
Mere gluttony is loosed upon the world,
The blood-incited appetite is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of gastronomy is purged;
The best lack all confection, while the worst
Are filled with passion fruit and fake whipped cream.

Surely some indigestion is at hand;
Surely the second crumbing is at hand.
The second crumbing! Hardly are those words out
When a vile recipe from Patisserie Bizarre
Troubles my taste buds: somewhere on a crud-stained tablecloth
A shape of a croissant with the texture of Wonder Bread,
A glaze as pale and pasty as kindergarten glue
Is dripping off its sides, while all about it
Flutter shadows of the indignant epicures.
The flavor fades again; but now I know
That half a century of junk-snack addiction
Was vexed to nightmare by the fast-food corporations,
And what stale brioche, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards the microwave to be warmed?

For the parodied poem, William Butler Yeats' "The Second Coming," see https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming.