Forget Magazine. Remember, Remember, Remember.

Bloodless phrase that - too abstract
for the epicentre of an earthquake.

Thumbtacks on a municipal map
put your residence in the neighbourhood

of several "last seen in" vicinities.
Cops know you know Surrey, Aggasiz.

You've got relatives in Deroche,
where the Johnsrude boy's body was found.

Cops know you're a switch hitter,
have made you for previous indecency beefs,

but luck has more links than purines
and pyrimidines, even jurisprudence it seems

All charges have been stayed. You smile,
wriggle like a jar full of tadpoles

in the light. How much longer before
the feet you grow end up in your mouth?

Even the voluntary mention of ratting out
sexual sadist/ jail mate Marcoux,

certainty, dead certainty you're connected
with the disappearance of these kids,

cannot contain you. Maybe the lids
have too many nail holes, allow

an exchange of air and this other
element you swim in. Maybe

your knowing they know gives you gills,
allows you to swim past your words

with a little swish-flick of the tail.
Your pupils dilate even as they swallow

the light. We cannot follow you
into their murk. Your mouth

rasps away at air like a sucker
cleaning algae from the glass.

It's your aquarium too. You decide
how big it is and what fish to let in.

Richard Stevenson remembers the day.