The sadness was a nightstick

in the hands of a racist cop—

it beat us so soundly

that we crawled to refuge in music.

But they had got there first.

The upper room studio

had been sacked; the mixing board

stripped; the instruments smashed;

wires like the bucket of intestines

beneath the butcher´s table.

A gagging silence.

In the mess Mary found a tape deck,

the single thing intact.

By a miracle his mother had kept

his old cassettes. 

We met again an hour later,

locked the door and sat to listen.

But her fingers shook so much

That she couldn´t touch

just one button.

She hit both PLAY and REWIND.

And that´s how at last we heard him;

his song in reverse

going forward forever

turning over on its own

in a loop that caught and yanked us up.

We heard again and believed

as we never had before;

his life backwards advancing

and we, like children, like drunkards, dancing.