Stalk

The giant-killer’s mother didn’t sell him
(as she might have done) to sweep chimneys 
or stoke fires or haul water to workers in fields.
Nor did she plan to lose or eat him. 
She sent him off tethered to the only treasure left. 

Then waved with a hand older than her years
and crossed the fingers of the other
behind her thin back.  The wind 
came from everywhere
to dust her eyes.

In most versions the clever fool 
returned with beans to a sour welcome—
the story of a stranger on his lips, 
a man perched somewhere now, 
laughing, drinking their milk.

Flung, earth received the shrivelled 
bits of life, new shoots like green 
lightning moving up deep and down high.  

Jack climbed to his peril,
spoke feverishly at night
of castles.  Would not stop.

This is one of those stories
we are tangled in.  Generations
and centuries have not woken 
from it, walked away.  Though 
and so we keep tidying it up, up.

Before the golden eggs it was 
one giant after another, really,
throats slashed, un-legged, back-
stabbed, lapped at by pools of blood
the rattle of giant throats.  Jack’s
eyes glittered while he recounted it
at the table groaning with food
reaching for the glass the servant filled.

Leaves and insects land upon her. 
The crashing overhead marks their descent.
She does not know whose voice is crying
Mother bring the ax.

© Chantel Lavoie