The foxes

hold all weddings on Sundays.

It begins with champagne brunches— the upper-class way to drink before noon. They dip their narrow-tipped muzzles near the fizz, bubbles tickling their whiskers.

Just pour orange juice

to add twice as much class. They anticipate with flickering tails the parade. With delicate paws, vixens adjust pill box hats of mustard mushroom caps and moss. They gossip about the fox-groom—

A real jackal with bad table manners

and a den of minimal size. The ceremony begins— kits wearing oak leaf hats prance towards the clearing to the reedy tone of wooden flutes.

Genevieve Nicole Betts received her B.A. in English Literature in 2003 and her M.F.A. in creative writing in 2006, both from Arizona State University. Her most recent work appeared in MATTER, CHAIN, red., and 42opus. Currently, she teaches at ASU and lives in Tempe with her husband and cat.