FOUR YEAR-OLD CHILD, FALLING

When you fell

it was your full weight

over the soft arm

of the chair and away

from the last moment

of your losing balance,

and from before that,

when you were closer

to the balance you

once had, your feet

planted on the bottom

cushion and your smile

so pure and wide

as we each held pillows

that we had not yet

tossed in play, moments

we had not yet set

in motion

and that I tried

to reverse in my rush

to your crying, and

in picking you up

from the hardwood floor

and holding your head

to my shoulder,

and in each moment,

pulling you away

from that sound

of your head hitting,

your legs wrapped

around my waist; your

hands, on my neck

and shoulder; and your

tears and trembling

taken in to my body,

so I can

take it all back

and away to that

moment of your standing

on your own and moving

on again into the world

and somehow beyond

the power of accident

to take us all away.

Pete Follansbee’s poem, “Dark Heart,” about the tragic Charlottesville alt-right demonstrations two summers ago, is currently online at the About Place Journal, and his “Fuck the Politics,” can still be found online with the Atticus Review. Also, his poem, “When I Stay By Myself,” a semifinalist in The New Guard Review’s Knightville Poetry Contest, is forthcoming in their Vol VIII to be released this December. Pete’s poems have also appeared in The North American Review, The Georgetown Review, The Iowa Journal of Literary Studies, Pavement magazine, and on The New Guard’s online BANG! page. An MFA graduate from The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Pete was a T.A. for Virginia Poet Laureate, Tim Seibles, at the summer 2017 edition of The Writer’s Hotel. And in October 2017, Pete presented his most recent manuscript, Grace, at The Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference on Whidbey Island, Washington state. After growing up in New England and living in Iowa for five years, Pete currently lives and teaches in Richmond, Virginia.