Jack and the beanstalk by Simon Alderwick

Jack and the beanstalk 

but he lives with his wife, not his mother 

and the wife gives him money to buy groceries 

but he comes home with arms full of books 

and she throws them out of the window 

and they turn into trees 

but not overnight 

in fact it takes hundreds of years 

for the pages and the covers 

of the books to break down 

into mulch and compost 

and for saplings to sprout and grow, 

by which time Jack has been long forgotten 

but the kids of the folk who live in the house now 

sometimes climb the trees  

hang upside down from the branches 

until the blood rushes to their heads 

and their eyes almost burst from the pressure 

Simon Alderwick currently lives in Oxford, UK. His poetry has appeared in Magma, Berlin Lit, Poetry Salzburg, Anthropocene, Frogmore Papers, Dreich, IS&T, and elsewhere. A pamphlet, ways to say we're not alone, is available through Broken Sleep Books.