Stephen Knight (b.1960) was born in Swansea and read English
at Oxford. He is the author of several collections of poetry:
Flowering Limbs (1993) and Dream City Cinema (1996), both
published by Bloodaxe, and The Sandfields Baudelaire
(Smith/ Doorstop, 1996). His first novel, Mr. Schnitzel, appeared
from Penguin in 2000. He received an Eric Gregory Award
in 1987 and won the 1992 National Poetry Competition.






Everything Must Go

The afternoon the pavements shine like glass although it pelting down /
it isn’t raining anymore, you leave the station of a town
you’ve never visited before, passing a taxi rank, a red sign,
light-headed traffic on the avenue of double yellow lines, elm trees
coming into leaf at last…You cover your eyes, but no one sees
the new taste in your mouth is grief/is love, and no one speaks to you.

Chained up outside a crumbling shop, a mongrel watches someone kiss
the window, point, then say ‘That…’ to a woman mouthing ‘This?
Or this?’ and you are miles away, lost/waiting for the rain to stop
while - in the violet light - clean paving-stones and golf umbrellas glow
(your own face something of a shock, reflected in the runny window
where the carriage clock or the wedding ring had been.)