My Daddy Was a Three Glass Bastard

My daddy was a three glass bastard
a vinegar pistol
a prized fighter who strained to hear truth
over his own slow ringing
that sounded like peppercorns falling into a glass.

As a young man he traded for a satchel
and used that satchel to trap death.
As a young man he hung death
from the farthest branch,
in the tallest tree,
and with death tight in a satchel,
he fell to the ground.
and with his face cut open I lived.

A long-legged, skinny man,
a terra cotta man with a dry mouth,
my daddy didn't like to wait for a drink;
liked three glasses all lined up.

After the first drink he'd call me over
and say, hey girl,
I once was a bonfire;
before you were a twinkle in your daddy's eye,
you were a scar on the face of a con man.

The second took him harder, and then he thought
he was the Santa Ana, an itching wind and a rage,
a barrel nailed down, a rain
that rammed through dirt.

And on the third he'd close his eyes
and strain to remember
whether the wind blew for forty nights twenty years ago, or for twenty nights forty years ago,
and where it was he'd left the tallest tree.