POTATODE

by Jean Prokott

sometimes I think I've lost my mind

but it's just in the ground with the rest

of the potatoes, sprouting purple 

coral reef buds in fertile soil. potato, 

how are you eyes & skin & mother. 

how are you map & mouth.

how are you always in hand & 

underneath. someone brings you 

to surface & I choose your best 

from the grocer's pile—rummage 

through the spuds of petrified organs: 

sweet liver, pancreas with a little give, 

uneven kidneys, spleens to slice neatly—

at home, we disrobe you with paring

knives & your skin peels pile in the paper

bag like thin tongues or curling wet 

ribbon. you sink into your evening bath 

until starch bubbles surface & humidity 

breaks our kitchen's drought. or we 

wrap you in foil to trap heat & then slice 

your belly and cool you with cream 

& chives. or we cut you to cubes or for 

grease: strings or crosshatch or whichever

shape best serves the engines of our lips. 

sometimes I jump between cheesy lily 

pads of scalloped which crust brown 

underneath cheddar geysers. after boil 

& strain we whip out steam & drop in 

fat pat after fatpat of butter. I bury my 

face and exhale cream. everyone says

mashed potatoes are like clouds but all 

potatoes are clouds—sunset's baby 

red tubers, Yukon gold at dawn, purple 

fingerling shadows, russets near rain— 

& November's gray itself is the weight 

of potatoes & the reason we eat them 

these dark nights is because we are 

sick of walking through them each 

afternoon, oh potato, that heaviness 

is so tired of itself it can only be

consumed. 

Jean Prokott is the one adult involved with this literary journal and poet laureate of Rochester.