Jack headed back
to his home beneath the clouds,
gleeful with the looted treasures and
the feat of having felled a giant,
who was lying nearby,
his cracked skull dyed in a pool of red,
his lips moving but not making sense,
his eyes staring, dimming, unseeing,
and Jack, having ransacked
the other's abode, ran home to his mother,
uncaring of how the giant's breathing
gradually slowed to a stop,
unaware of how mere moments after
he left the chopped beanstalk and
the newly made crater behind,
the giant's wife up on the clouds
sat down beside her pans and pots,
wondering where her husband was,
her eyes misted by the steaming food
and the boiling thoughts underneath
her impatient facade.
Jack headed back,
humming to himself and
dreaming of a better life
where every luxury was within reach,
heedless of the echoes
of a lonesome lady's sighs
haunting the walls of a plundered home,
uncaring of how that same old lady–
who had shown him kindness
and hospitality–
began to pace around her quietened house,
wondering where the usual grumbling sounds
had disappeared to,
oblivious to the change in her status
from wife to widow
as she stared at the door that remained closed,
her hand unconsciously rubbing her chest,
the dread in her gaze unseen,
the worry in her sighs unheard,
and the pain in her heart unknown
to those laughing merrily beneath the idle clouds.
Ngo Binh Anh Khoa is a teacher of English in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. In his free time, he enjoys reading fiction and writing poetry for entertainment. His speculative poems have previously appeared in Eternal Haunted Summer, Spectral Realms, Weirdbook, Star*Line, and other venues.
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