Aesthetic Realism Looks at New York City: Poetry
Martha Baird
When The Gas Burner Lights
I turn the handle on the gas stove
And the burner lights up.
This means
My pilot light is working,
And New York City is functioning.
There is gas in the pipes,
And Consolidated Edison, for all its wickedness,
has not collapsed.
The burner lights because there is,
Between my desire and the infinite world,
A connection:
A visible, tangible, orderly
Connection.
From Nice Deity (New York: Definition Press, 1955)