We were reading to ourselves. Sometimes to others.
I was quietly reading the margin
when the doves fell, it was blue
outside. Perhaps in a moment,
he said. The moment never came.
I was reading something else now,
it didn’t matter. Other people came, and
dropped off their resumés. I wasn’t being idle,
exactly. Someone wanted to go away
altogether in this preposterous season.

(John Ashbery, in As Umbrellas Follow Rain)