I used to wait at the window for lake-effect snow.
First wind, then a thin smattering of flakes

swirling suddenly white while the village
disappeared, and my house with it,

the husband drunk and asleep on the couch
or not yet home, missing as he was in dreams 

where I killed him without knowing who it was,
waking to panic I’d done a thing so horrible,

some nights wondering if I really had killed, 
the dream so real, as the vanishing house

seemed real while I stared into the silent rush
of snow, never thinking I’d be gone, too, then,

until the night the car smashed the maple tree
at the edge of the lawn, metal crumpling, a horn

unstoppable, then through the snow human cries
so pitiful I grabbed my coat and ran

to my husband, banged up a little, bloodied,
but all right, so I led him inside, I made coffee,

I tended his wounds, wondering if I would 
ever awake, if I would ever stop feeling this

snow pour from my hands, my mouth,
covering him, the table, the rising floor.