Banana Bread

Banana Bread

One cup of buckwheat flour
mixed with equal parts of quinoa finely crushed:
the synergies of gluten free.
Maple syrup plays its part,
bananas must be ripe.

Degrees of blandness slip into the ritual,
stomach gurgles
in the shed of so-called muck
consumed from forbidden crops.
Those self-diagnosed
out-number the true celiacs.
Purist borrow their scruples from the boycott
of common cuisine, nothing is sacred except
bottled water and kale.

(sticky dumplings drizzled with clotted cream
are treats lost to the past—like direct speech/
now it's bullshit
friends who redesign themselves
smart phones that substitute personal banter
politicians puffed with false analyses
safe schools and metadata files)

I ignore the loaf cooling in a pained tin,
lavish real butter onto a golden baked scone,
refuse to become another fibre-deficient trophy
for the health and well-being tribe,
who stack their defence for supermarket profits
in a snobbery protest against
wheat, barley and rye.