Juliene T. Weaver

Crossing the Tracks

Mother said Cheryl wasn’t good enough
to be my friend, she disapproved of her mother
and father—they were from the other side
of the tracks, lived in a trailer, had a flock
of children, mostly boys who she said
would come to no good. Nothing more
I wanted than to go to Cheryl’s to learn life.

Once, we cleaned her filthy house—we spent
a day hands in sudsy water clearing stacks
of dishes, counters, tabletop and floor—
scrapping blots of ketchup, sticky piles of
ammunition rowdy boys squirted at each other.
Her brothers walked in after we finished—
destroyed our clean house in an instant,

laughing at us good girls. Their life a rebuff
against order. One brother tall, dark hair, sultry,
a cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth,
beer on his breath—now I’d say Jack Kerouac,
he died as young—had a loose friendly
look, always smiling a smirk, his thumb
in his belt buckle. Staring and wooed by his

easy curls. Cheryl was the danger I craved,
or maybe I wanted to protect her, she reminded
me of a small bird in a nest overrun with fleas.
Maybe I wanted to know how bad a family
could be. Her other brother died young
in a drunk car accident. Cheryl died
from ovarian cancer, leaving four children.

It was years later visiting my father’s grave
I found their gravestones side-by-side.
Tears in my eyes, I whispered, Cheryl, we tried.