you gather the world around you--thick and overlapping--and
loneliness persists. you are on the world but not
of the world. detailed but flat--a movie set's backdrop--you are
in front of the plywood house or behind, inside does not exist.

use the church bell to tell time. absorb the front stoop of a man,
his dog, their smile. see what the fat setting sun points out.

it will persist
but there are distractions from the yawning silence