Morning

Wet leaves. The last flickers of lightning. Dawn pouring up into the sky, like dirty milk, after a dim night of halfhearted thunderstorms. The earliest crows mutter irritably in the distance.

My young cousin's eager face lingers in my mind. She is fearless. Filled up to the trembling brim with light -- it spills and scatters from her. The only bright figure at that table for eight, last night.