for Ron and Pam Simpson

I

Dad’s new car was that Ford Customline
wide as a bed and hissing with energy.
We’ll drive carefully, we promised
and took turns to burn up the bitumen
right the way to Helidon.
It never hissed after that. It sighed.
Sometimes guilt takes fifty years
before the blister breaks.
The Ford was traded in after only four years.
Dad’s silence was the rub.