She finds a seat by the fireplace, bobs her head to the music, and enjoys the over-priced drink of the day. A few more people sit by the fireplace and she wonders if they’d like her seat, but she likes her seat so she doesn’t move. In her twenties, she would have carried a book or a notebook. In her sixties, the thought of hauling out her phone to look preoccupied is upsetting.

The people next to her seem to have come from seeing a movie. They interrupt each other, highlighting the plot, the facial expressions, the music, the final scenes. She realizes she has seen the film, laughs a bit, then leans over to add her own two cent’s worth. Someone tells her to pull her chair over and join them. She can’t believe her luck.

They exchange names. Talk about ticks while out hiking, careless drivers while biking, and someone recognizes her as the woman he sees walking the cute dog all over town. “They look just alike,” he laughs. His friends look momentarily embarrassed. “No, really. The dog wears this pink harness, and is this cute white furry creature, and I remember you wearing a matching pink coat.”

“That isn’t deliberate,” she mutters. “I mean, the coat. Well, the hair, well, that just happens.” They laugh and they include her drink with their next round.   

“I love your white hair,” Maura coos. “I wish my mom would quit dying hers.”

Just like that, she no longer feels as if she’s in her twenties, remembering when she’d head out of the bar with a young man looking for a late-night breakfast diner, an invite to one or the other’s apartment, a long walk through town. Then she returns to the present, back to her sixties, and a new but old Cowboy Junkies song plays, and she says, “I love  ‘Don’t Let it Bring you Down.’ I can’t believe this is the Cowboy Junkies.”  

“You are so old school!”  Maura holds her glass for a toast: “To the old school!”

To the old school, she thinks, the day no longer feeling so grey. 

How Can I Say It Was Not Enough?

Poems by Anne Kaier

   

Cover Design: Zoe Collins

"Brutal yet gorgeous." — Poet Elaine Terranova, author of Rinse "There is searing truth in these enthralling poems." — Eleanor Wilner, 2025 Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets "This is brave and necessary work that makes for riveting reading." — Cynthia Hogue, author of Instead, It is dark How Can I Say It Was Not Enough? tries to answer this question about life. Kaier’s book is a candid memoir-in-poems about family dynamics, love, sex and a distinctive body—all in ravishing and accessible verse. She writes about a complicated mother-daughter relationship that will strike home with many women. Several poems explore what it’s like to live in an unusual body—in her case with skin that is drier and redder than typical for an Irish American woman. The poems are full of yearning for a more satisfying intimate life; many people will understand this. Kaier’s verse also shows a deeply sensuous sensibility—an appreciation for the textures and scents of the natural world and for the pleasures of music and painting. At times lyrical, at times sarcastic, at times searing, these poems speak with a conversational voice that a wide range of readers will enjoy and remember. www.AnneKaier.com Available from Amazon, Bookshop, and your local independent bookstore.

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