“We Regret to Inform You That Your Coverage for a Trip to the Sea Has Been Denied” by Mary Kelly

October 17, 2025

Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “We Regret to Inform You That Your Coverage for a Trip to the Sea Has Been Denied” by Mary Kelly, part of the League’s Fresh Voices program. Due to its formatting, this poem is only available as an image.

We Regret to Inform You That Your Coverage for a Trip to the Sea Has Been Denied

By Mary Kelly

I order room service. I wear a dressing gown embroidered with the wrong name. A room attendant brings me a blueberry muffin, if I wanted stale blueness, I would fill my stomach with fists of salt. Wearing this beached grief that tourists dream of, I rest my hand upon the surface of everything. Duras in my tote bag. The thick breath of sea at my window. I drag my feet across the teal carpet. A seagull paces outside a chippy nauseating itself into sleep. * Some family in the restaurant knotted together through differing threats of disappointment. A birthday girl wishes out candles on a tiramisu. My laminated menu feeds me fun facts about the ocean: 8,100 kilometres south you will find the Oceanic Point of Inaccessibility, famously known as Point Nemo. I look to the curved windows, glass flush with the waning light of day. In their glory, four haloed hulks pass through the horizon. How does one find the soft spot of the Pacific? A man at the bar trembles in his indecision. I watch him, in the romantic sense โ€” like I am writing a novel about his hands. What is everything I cannot reach if not a mirage? *
A sign prohibits my swimming. I sit on a mound of pebbles and unwrap a sandwich. Nearby, a small white bird a red flag, limp in the wet air. with the uneasy legs of an aged chair. I am here again, hungry for the grey stroke of early waters. Belonging anywhere is a mythical tale; the tide heels before me. I anchor myself. A hook through a fish's mouth. * Come evening, I madden myself onto the shore. The brunette pianist from the hotel lobby follows me into the vanishing point. In his hand, a lighter, or a wallet, an unpaid bill. Inconsolable. I kiss his mouth below the clipped toenail of the moon. As with all my beloveds, I must admit to him I have turned to madness to cope with another kind of madness. The severe heaving of water and its gale. My dressing gown unmoored from my waist. Calloused fingers against my cheek. Followed by stinging. A tremendous wave fractures. Come morning, the hotel manager will find my body souvenired into the belly of a washed-up conch.

Copyright ยฉ Mary Kelly

Mary Kelly (she/her) is an Aotearoa-Canadian writer based in Vancouver, Canada. She is a current MFA candidate at The University of British Columbia and serves as the Poetry and Prose Editor for SAD Magazine and Assistant Editor for ONLYPOEMS. Her work is featured and forthcoming in Maisonneuve, Serviette, Canadian Literature Journal, Starling, Yolk, The Bangalore Review, and elsewhere.

Fresh Voices is a publication and workshop program created by and for the League’s associate members, curated and edited by Erin Vance.

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