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.