CHANEL BRENNER, "SIX YEARS AFTER MY FIRST SON'S DEATH" (Issue 16)

SIX YEARS AFTER MY FIRST SON'S DEATH

At my younger son’s baseball practice,
a dad talks about his two boys—
all that energy and wrestling at bedtime.

I know I should use the old bread
when I make my son a sandwich,
but I open the new.

It’s wasteful.

Like the hours I spent
pumping milk for my dead son.

Memories of my two boys
flash like reflections
off windshields.

The two of them jumping on the bed,
shrieking with joy,

until they broke the lamp—
shards of glass.

Light
wasted all over the floor.

ABOUT THE POET

Chanel Brenner is the author of Vanilla Milk: a memoir told in poems, (Silver Birch Press, 2014), a finalist for the 2016 Independent Book Awards and honorable mention in the 2014 Eric Hoffer awards. Her poems have appeared in New Ohio Review, Poet Lore, Rattle, Cultural Weekly, Muzzle Magazine, and others. Her poem “July 28th, 2012” won first prize in The Write Place At the Write Time’s contest, judged by Ellen Bass.

ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW

We’ve loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), so now we want an opportunity to better hear our contributors. We will feature an audio recording of a poem from one of our seven issues, read by the poet and updated every couple of weeks. This an open invitation to all contributors from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to hear it.