Zack Daily, Ashy Potato

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.