Jennie E Owen's "Falling" gives us a child who is on fire and falling, and never lands. The poem never says where he is or why, but the imagery of shutter speed, retinas, "negative" and a "paper face" suggests a photograph, the kind of image of suffering that people see in the news and can't forget. The child is stuck in that moment, "forever," beyond rescue.
The speaker seems horrified and also accusing. No song or speech can do justice to him, and looking at him leaves "black suns" burned into our eyes. Yet the poem points to how we respond: some of us stay close, some turn away, and some, in the last line, only "adjust the shutter speed," more concerned with capturing the scene than helping. The mood is bleak, urgent and uncomfortable. The short, repeated phrases ("falls and falls and falls") feel like a drumbeat, and the ending leaves us implicated as watchers.