Flour Is Firm

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?