Breakfast of the Birds by Giselle Silla

 

Illustration by Bella Aldrete

 

After “Breakfast of the Birds” by Gabriele Münter, oil on canvas, 1934

“Idk this painting made me think of you,”
Maddie texts me on a Saturday morning
during this eye-blink of a summer
when we’re closest we’ve ever been,
our minds and hearts and arms curling
together like vines up a pole.

One day I will be the brunette in the painting,
breakfasting before a branchful of birds
with tea, sugar, a dark loaf, some apricot jelly
keeping my hair short to my collar
with a kitchen of my own and a view
(though I could do without the scarlet drapes),

and I will think of her,
see her somehow in the snow sliding down the elbow of the tree;
and who knows what we’ll be to each other then,
vines up a pole or planets among disparate stars,
but over tea and snow and birds and apricot jelly I will text her something like:
“Idk this moment made me think of you.”

Giselle Silla (she/her) is a sophomore at Barnard College majoring in Urban Studies and minoring in German.