by Sam Kerbel
They don’t write poems about actors anymore.
I would like to have met but we didn’t.
I’d like to be home alone with Catherine O’Hara.
I saw an old friend at O’Hare near the Ryanair
Lounge for a drink on our way crisscrossing
Over actors who don’t act anymore
And asked him why the maple-shaded creek
We waded through on pilgrimage to Spencer’s
Skipping reruns of Home Alone starring Catherine O’Hara
Don’t come to mind while we reminisce
Old grievances. Truthfully it would’ve been better.
We share names of actors we don’t hear of anymore.
His older sister smelled nice and had a thing
For daytime TV—leaving us be, home alone,
Boys being boys in waterbeds over Catherine O’Hara
Transatlantic peek-a-boo un peu passé.
What is it you wish you didn’t?
If they won’t tend to actors anymore
I’ll be fine at home, alone, waiting in my robe
for Catherine O’Hara.
Sam Kerbel is a poet living in New York. He was shortlisted for the 2024 Oxford Poetry Prize and nominated for the 2026 Pushcart Prize and 2026 Best of the Net Anthology. His first chapbook, Can't Beat the Price (2025), is available from Bottlecap Press. Poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Anthropocene, Burial Magazine, Expat Press, Lana Turner, and South Florida Poetry Journal, among other publications.