MONOBONS by SANDY MCINTOSH

 Two Monobons by Sandy McIntosh

 

NEWSPRINT

 

The New York Times, September 10, 1908

 

A living storage battery is E. G. Atloy who lives with his widowed mother.  He is a human magnet, with the electric properties of a dynamo engine. A metal filling had been put in one tooth, and when the boy came home, he picked up the knob used to connect an electric fan and thrust it into his mouth. His head jerked slightly. The fan began to revolve and to buzz frantically. A piece of iron held in the boy's hand became highly magnetized. A hammer with an iron handle attracted tacks at four feet. The mother was frightened and feared witchcraft. He has red hair, large freckles, and blue eyes. 

 

From faded newsprint, his evanescent smile.

 

 

 

The New York Times, April 12, 1962

 

My father’s obituary photograph on the faded newsprint: rigid, glowering—a formal businessman’s portrait by Fabian Bachrach. I wish I could see my father now, in vivo, perhaps moving among his colleagues, gesturing, making a presentation, witty. Or relaxed at the beach, sipping a dewy iced tea, his skin tanned, his tennis racket and sweaty towel in the sand against the leg of his chair. 

 

But I’m left with that photograph to remember a man sacrificed by his own choice to the sarcophagus of formality.

 

 

*****

 

Sandy McIntosh was born in Rockville Centre, New York, and received a BA from Southampton College, an MFA from Columbia University, and PhD from the Union Graduate School. His poetry has been published in The New York Times, Poetry, and elsewhere. His journalism and Op-Eds have been published widely in The New York Times, The Daily Beast, The New York Daily News, Newsday, and elsewhere. He has published sixteen volumes of poetry and prose. For ten years he was the Managing Editor of Confrontation, Long Island University’s national literary journal. For twenty-two years he has been Managing Editor and Publisher of Marsh Hawk Press, Inc.