Honest Living

My father drives us over the tame slopes of his farm.
Too fast, I think –
but I am four and think everything is too something.
My father sings old love songs
changing words like “my dear” to “manure,”
his Kentucky accent dripping off the dashboard.
Colors here are too true to be believed:
Crayola grass under magic marker sky –
My father’s Cadillac on an artist’s landscape
like some kind of crazy mistake.
My father stops us near a herd of cows;
I remain in the car with my fear of them.
But my father – all twenty feet of him –
walks calmly through the crowd,
mentally noting each head
with a dollar sign.