“The Sao Paulo Novotel” by Kyeren Regehr
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “The Sao Paulo Novotel” by Kyeren Regehr.
The Sao Paulo Novotel
By Kyeren Regehr
She poses on the balcony,
restlessly tousled, belly half-full
of coffee and sticky pastries,
Behind her a twelve foot sign
rides the side of the hotel,
morning sky promises a glossy
touristy blue.
Her friend snapped the shot
before they noticed
the shanty town across the street,
before they watched
the barefoot boy drag
a sheet of plywood into the tin
and cardboard beehive rising
out of the mud. He’s doll-sized
in the photo, a blotch
beyond the white-washed walls,
geranium-stuffed flowerbeds
and latticed columns of bougainvillea.
The board casts him in shadow,
a brown shirt drapes his body
feet dirty to the knees.
She too is barefoot, polished
pink toenails peek from beneath
a velvety robe monogrammed
with the hotel logo. Later,
she will stop at a mall, buy
her daughter a pair of leather sandals
with cherry buttons.
Copyright © Kyeren Regehr
First appeared in Poetry Pause on August 5, 2020.
Kyeren Regehr’s collection Cult Life, was a finalist for the 2021 ReLit Awards and The Victoria Butler Book Prize; Disassembling A Dancer won the inaugural Raven Chapbooks contest. Since 2008, her poetry has been published in literary periodicals and anthologies in Canada, Australia, and the USA, including The Literary Review of Canada, Canadian Literature, Best New Poets, Best Canadian Poetry in English, and Hecate, and her work has been thrice longlisted for the CBC Poetry Awards. Although born in Australia, she was raised as a writer in Canada—she holds a BFA and MFA in Writing from the University of Victoria, and served as an editor on the poetry board of The Malahat Review. She works as a freelance literary editor and writing mentor, and is the Artistic Director of Planet Earth Poetry (Victoria’s premier reading series, now in its 28th year). Kyeren lives and writes with gratitude on the unceded lands of the W̱SÁNEĆ people.
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