A Miracle for Breakfast

“A Miracle for Breakfast” is in the form of a sestina, so the words at the end of the lines in Stanza 1 serve as the words at the end of the lines—in a different order—in the other stanzas. The end words are “coffee,” “crumb,” “balcony,” “miracle,” “sun,” and “river.” The sestina places extra stress on the terms as they have to appear at least once in every stanza. The final stanza stands apart because it’s only three lines, so the poet has to repeat two of the end words in each line. The last stanza is called the envoi. The sestina form reinforces the surrealist elements of the poem since the recurring words haunt the poem. The form also emphasizes the theme of struggle since neither the speaker nor the crowd can escape their lack of nourishment, and the poem can’t depart from the six end words.

Although the line lengths are relatively even, Bishop doesn’t use a prescribed meter in the poem. The number of syllables varies from line to line, which reinforces the puzzling quality of the poem. The reader can’t predict the number of beats or what will happen next.