Billy Collins says that Mary Oliver writes poems for a stranger from some distance country in some distance century.

I understand the words perfectly

the meaning slightly

the concept hardly.

I do not write for the ages

or for the world.

I write for those I know will understand me.

I write for Americans

for New Yorkers

for smartass Manhattanites who'd rarely set foot off the island.

I write for today and yesterday and tomorrow

but not further off than that

and I don't refer to them as points of metaphor

or symbolically resonant images

but as a three-day cycle.

My attention span and imagination have no more distance to them.

I write for those who know what I'm talking about

those who share my memories

my blood.

I write for the telepaths who have known my neurons

and my neutered nature

and who appreciate all I am

easily

through experience.

Really, though, I write for me.

Which may be why Billy Collins hasn't said shit about me.