Zack Daily
Ashy Potato I watch Jake, a schizophrenic man, place a raw potato into the embers of our morning fire, skin and all. He turns it occasionally, but does not take his eyes off of it for ten minutes. I watch him the whole duration. I see his brow quiver, focused and clear, and his foot taps with patient excitement, and I envy this silent whimsy of his. I can hear the starches boiling, steaming amidst the fragile quiet of snowfall and wind as I watch two beads of sweat gather and race down his forehead, then collide just above the bridge of his nose before hanging on the tip, waiting, trembling, falling, sizzling on the coals where the potato just sat. The juices as he bites through the skin run down his jaw and drip onto the melting snow, the two now virtually indistinguishable.
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