Jack (in the Box)

Lost things, odd jobs, an unsolved riddle

Leave them all at the door, with the right price

But be warned, not to swindle

Or you'll be made to pay back thrice

- Of-all-trades, Jack

Reads the sign hanging from the rusty old tack

The store is large, opulent, gilded-gold sometimes

Or small, crowded, interesting things hidden

Peeking out of corners, seemingly forbidden

Sometimes it is both, ever-so-capricious

Learning well from its keeper, mercurial in turns

The keeper of the store is said to be:

Young, old, spineless, bold,

Raven-haired, straw-headed, pale-faced, ruddy-cheeked

Dressed in a jester's hat, and red and black

Wrapped in the finest jewelry, only of royalty

There is only one constant;

The name is Jack

Nailed to the walls, you will see

Golden eggs, singing harps, staffs of ice, woven in tapestry

In the corners, you will find

Giant bones, spring-heeled shoes, malt-eating rats, plum Christmas pie

The wares come and go,

Stolen from and swindled back and lost and won

For Jack is foolish, but on his brow sits

Lady Luck's kiss

Jack is an everyman

The keeper of the store is said to have;

Candles in a row, neatly spaced on the floor

For you, good buyer, to jump over with a roar

If all go out, the fee is free

The quality of your wish guaranteed

If one goes out, the price is halved

Fingers, not a hand

Six goats, not a dozen

If all stay bright, as happens most often

For the fires are of magic foreign

Pray to God for the right price

Jack deals roulette in luck and lives

They say no one finds Jack's store twice

But it always seems to be the same sort enticed

Greedy, afraid, forlorn, occasionally noble

The desperate, the ready to gamble

All so glum, when Jack only wants fun

***

There are sometimes Jills to Jack

Time and ancestry twist and twist, provides titles so various

Jill, Gillian, Juliane, Julianus

Sometimes a different name altogether, but in spirit still

Jack's Jill

A one-time customer, buying freedom from shackles of a kingdom

Clutching a pail of water, wetting all the candlesticks jumped over

"That's trickery," Jack says, disappointed and impressed, "but a deal's a deal."

Jack shatters the King's crown and pays the brideprice

For this Jill, this (one-)life-time Achilles' heel

(As they say, no one finds Jack's store twice)

Jill is sometimes an assistant at Jack's store

But Jill is more often a memento in tapestry, a sweet-and-bitter reminder

Jack and Jill are kind, twisted, healthy, broken

Demented to each other, or perfect together

Jack and Jill live in the house atop the hill

A queen and a jester, a maid and a knave

Jill is a beauty and Jack is a beast

And Jill plunges a knife into Jack's breast

(Either love or death do the trick; it’s the curse-breaker’s pick)

Jack rips up wives and women of the night, seeking Jill

Jill feeds Jack to her brothers and takes Jack's fortune and castle

Jack sleeps folded into a shoebox

Cut into pieces from a giant's axe

And next to the box, slightly sparking

Always sits his lantern-head-pumpkin

It is something of a turn-off to women

(But Lady Luck favors him still,

and Jill is not always one)

Jill sleeps in any bed

On mattresses upon blankets upon furs upon a pea

Under the bridge, called witch or banshee

In the deep woods, clothed in red

A prickly constant; Jill can never stay alone

Always a prince, always a hero, always a wolf

To slay, to trick, to conquer, to love

Sometimes only, when things are off-track

A Jack