Veronica Tucker

Pine Needles in My Pocket

I walked the trail until the fabric sagged heavy
with resin and scent.
The needles crackled like secrets
too sharp for the trees to keep.

I kept them because silence needed ballast,
because my palms were still hungry.
Later, at the washing machine,
they scattered across the floor
like compass points refusing to agree.

I bent to gather them,
thread by thread,
imagining they might stitch themselves
into a map:
one line back to childhood,
one to the lost hour before dawn,
one to the version of me
who believed every direction
would end at water,
and one to the place
I will not recognize until I arrive.   ‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍

Instructions for Carrying a Mirror Through a Storm

Hold it close as if it breathes.
Turn the reflective side inward,
let the rain find only the frame.

Do not glance into it.
Lightning may steal your face,
may duplicate you in air
and leave neither copy whole.

Step carefully. The glass remembers
every slip of foot, every hesitation.
It is an archive more faithful
than any diary,
a witness that will not forgive.

If you reach shelter intact,
prop it in the corner
with towels beneath.
Only then may you look.

What you see will not be
your reflection,
but the storm’s ledger
of who you became
while crossing.   ‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍

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Veronica Tucker is an emergency medicine and addiction medicine physician, mother of three, and lifelong New Englander. Her writing explores the intersections of medicine, motherhood, memory, and the human experience. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her work appears in ONE ART, The Berlin Literary Review, Rust and Moth, and elsewhere. Her debut chapbook, The House as Witness (Quillkeepers Press, April 2026), examines the emotional architecture of home, care, and survival. She lives in New Hampshire with her family, where she writes between shifts, long runs, and early morning quiet. Find her at www.veronicatuckerwrites.com and on Instagram @veronicatuckerwrites.