I watch you sleep, the warm loaf of you under a white sheet pierced by a slit of sunlight from the hospital window. Finally, your eyes open, your index finger beckons feebly. I sit beside you, lift your hair from your eyes. You smile a crooked smile. “My left arm,” you say. “Can’t move it.” I close the blind and massage your arm. This is all I can do.

child with wooden sword
stands in the darkness
and hacks at the sun

—Adapted from “After Your Stroke,” which appears in Gilmore’s collection of lineated poems Panning for Gold (Imago Press, 2014)

Bio: Dan Gilmore