In line 9 of the opening stanza, the speaker defines kindness as a kind of place, referring to it as "regions of kindness". She concludes the stanza by comparing the feeling of loss without kindness to riding a bus that you think will never stop, as you believe "the passengers eating maize and chicken / will stare out the window forever." This metaphor underscores the sense of helplessness and isolation that accompanies loss, with the words "maize and chicken" conveying the sense of riding a bus in a foreign country.
