Kitsune

Nine tails moved before the fox face did. A kitsune stood at the shrine edge, the Japanese fox of trick and many tails, a smile that had already happened. People who bowed felt the joke land a breath late. They left with a kitsune gift of that delay. It shows again in kitsune playing cards that change when you blink, in a kitsune notebook with a line written in two hands, in a kitsune postcard of the tails and the shrine light. The path empties. The tails do not settle.