Veronica Tucker
The Correct Form of Address
He calls me sweetheart
while splitting sternum from story,
asking for suction,
speaking with practiced certainty.
Honey in the hallway.
Sweetheart at the desk.
Something soft folded over instruction
like gauze pressed to skin.
The first years I laugh too quickly,
shift my weight in doorways,
memorize dosages beneath fluorescent light,
badge clipped crooked against thin blue scrubs.
Outside, winter hardens the parking lot.
Coffee moves through the halls in paper cups,
steam rising from each private life.
In rooms where bodies stop cooperating,
I say difficult things plainly.
This will hurt.
No, not tonight.
You cannot drive.
He may not wake up.
Some faces turn once toward the doorway.
Later, sweetheart again,
as if nothing happened.
At home my daughter asks
whether I was brave today.
The kitchen window fogs with dinner.
Someone upstairs laughs too hard.
A cardinal startles the hedge.
Tomorrow, another hallway,
another clipped introduction.
My badge turned backward again,
the plastic edge worn cloudy
where my thumb keeps finding it.
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, place, and the human experience. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared in journals including ONE ART, The Berlin Literary Review, and Rust & Moth, among others. Her debut chapbook is "The House as Witness" (Quillkeepers Press, 2026). She lives in New Hampshire with her family and writes between shifts, long runs, and finely crafted matcha lattes. Website: veronicatuckerwrites.com | Instagram: @veronicatuckerwrites