Jack Rabbit

by Matthew Tuckner

Frederick Sommer, gelatin silver print, 1939

The photograph cannot distinguish

between the properties of matter.

What did this. What in the world. What urge

to vault across, the thought driving

the body beneath the wheel that runs the rabbit

full throttle into the asphalt.

There is no eye here. The photograph

discards it. How far, it asks. How deep

will you dive to find it, scouring

the gravel for the matter at hand,

the embryo of almost that splits

the living body from the look closer

of intestine, the rocks mistaken

please forgive me for bone.

The photograph cannot distinguish

between property & matter.

To own what is flattened, it flattens further.

Pay attention, it asks the eye sockets.

Stay still, it asks the burst of blood,

the blur of road, the grass sprouting,

brand new, from the torso.

I am trying to see this.

Matthew Tuckner received his MFA in creative writing at NYU and is currently a PhD student in English/creative writing at University of Utah, where he edits Quarterly West. His debut collection of poems, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, is forthcoming from Four Way Books in Fall 2025. His chapbook, Extinction Studies, is the winner of the 2023 Sixth Finch Chapbook Prize. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in AGNI, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, The Nation, The Adroit Journal, and Best New Poets, among others.