Hot fat meat smoke
draws them from the street
down to the daily special,
lured under greasy arches to sit at the table
painted red for salivation.
They stay to feed, addicting to minimum wage.
Hired on to fill and empty fry-vats
employees in sweaty uniforms circulate
recyclables and unrecyclables,
slipping food items in coded wrappings,
rotated to the counter where hunger meets production,
orders given and taken in standard diction.
Simple punches exchange pictures on the menu
for pictures on the till,
coinage fingered like an abstract.
At the coffers assistant managers
with shiny chins offer profit to the banks,
paying off stupefying dupes in fatty scraps
to breed dumb as unread rabbits
lined up insatiable, sniffing the village edge
where fields yield to malls and Macs,
seeking and making and
seeking and making
more and more burgers
until the world belongs to
two rich men with no books,
feeding, fed, gone.