Escaping Beryl

We will leave before the storm comes.

I talk with my dad on the phone,
listen to his stories

how my grandfather at fifteen
became a hobo
and jumped railroad cars

for he couldn't bear his father
to beat him with a razor strap
for standing up to the kids

who bullied his brother.

I listen in wonderment
to how my grandfather
became a carnie

a genius at building games
that only let a player win
if he wanted them to.

I imagine him piecing together
parts that would trick
the eye and the mind

as the eye of the hurricane
tracks us with slow, arbitrary stealth.

We will be strange gypsies
hoarding our Xbox’s
and PlayStation’s

and I think of my grandfather
constructing ring tosses
and high strikers

putting distance
between himself
and the wrathful eye of his father

as we load up the car
en route
to the cheap hotel