Flour Is Firm

The Traveler’s Vade Mecum, line 4234 Baking two parts flour to one part water could stop a bullet. So good soldiers carried their hardtack over their hearts. Break it down with a rifle butt, flood it, fry it in pig fat to make hellfire stew. Gnaw it raw and praise the juice. Does wheat prepare for this as it grows, seeking the light in a half-thawed field? Do stalks know their strength is merely in their number? What is ground down we name flour in promise that it will be made useful. Otherwise, it’s just dust. Sheet iron crackers. Teeth-dullers. Would you call it starving, if a man dies with hardtack still tucked in his pocket? Can you call it food, if the bullet comes only at the moment he gives in and swallows?