Hearthlight
Veronica Tucker
The fire bends forward,
a patient listener to our voices.
Wool socks sag at the toes,
steam loosens from a chipped mug.
Outside, the trees lean
into each other’s shadows,
but here the room breathes
with cinnamon and pine.
Even silence glows softer
when the embers learn
to hold their own pulse,
slow, steady, enough.
Veronica Tucker
Veronica Tucker is an emergency medicine and addiction medicine physician, poet, and lifelong New Englander. Her work explores the intersections of medicine, motherhood, memory, and what it means to be human. She has work appearing in One Art, Eunoia Review, and The Berlin Literary Review, with additional works forthcoming. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband, three children, and two dogs. When not writing or working in the hospital, she can be found running, traveling, or savoring a finely crafted matcha latte.