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.