Six years old. You are eleven.

Our mother parks her boxy corolla

outside the newsagent’s. The road

is flat-like it’s been eyeballed

with a spirit level. She counts coins
from her unzipped purse, pencils the expense

in her notebook and speaks an instruction

I can’t remember. Perhaps it’s easier

to leave the two of us in the car

needling and elbowing each other
on that vinyl seat, until one of us

claims the space (measured in stitching)

we think we deserve. But as I watch

her swish away from the car towards

the headline bills and lurid lotto ads,
I long to follow her. To browse Holly Hobby

swap cards and smell the strawberry

scented erasers. Instead, I watch you

climb into the front seat and wait

until you catch my gaze in the mirror.
Don’t tell, you say and lower your hand

onto the brake. Your finger rests

on the button. “I’ll let go.”

You practise a release and laugh.

I stop looking and scream, my throat 
wide open like the foxgloves

that bloom years later in your garden,

the day you tell me what he’s done to you.

Our mother returns. Keys open the car.

One day we’ll all crash.