Me and My Dad Dancing to Hugh Masekela

Me and my dad
Dancing to Hugh Masekela
Busted stereo
Worn carpet
His collared shirt and trousers
Trademark dance
Fingers pointing in symmetry
Eyes closed behind wire-framed glasses
Knees bent
Heels carrying his weight back and forth
Back and forth to work
To the job that ignores his PhD
To the kids who complain about his accent
Back and forth to the home his wife is keeping warm
His children think his face is a foreign language
Hips jutting side-to-side
He moves one step forward and two steps back
Across the living room where
I was once too scared to question the space he takes up
I sink into the indent of his favorite chair
We drink moscato and watch Scandal
Dad and I dancing to Hugh Masekela
Wispy horns shooting white smoke over burping bass
Our unbound limbs
Moving beyond resignation
Moving forward from a childhood of loss
Moving outside both our native tongues
Moving across an Atlantic that severs children from family
Moving, still, to the stories his father told him
The boy is doing it
Our bodies unfold
Sail out of this room
To a place
Where my father and I
Can dance