Wrong Turn

Rain fell on the romantic, historic site
And brought inside the bride and groom
But did not dampen guests or toasts
Until after the last of many cheers
We took a wrong turn on the winding lane
Or didn't take the turn we meant to take
And drove deeply into black country night
Further and further from the city's light
Before consensus from our bubbly brains
Decreed we stop the car and think.

Darkness was like a dream or waking
With insomnia when the power has failed
Or a meaning we could not escape for
Love of Freud no wrong turns or right
Turns without meaning and we had,
The whole car full, chosen gloom.

Not one decisive thought could bring us
Near to light until a dog barked his right
To bark decisively and fear brought memory
Back to trace our path like Mission padres,
Wondering how we could have lost our heads,
To the Mission town and threw our muddled
Selves upon the imitation Mission beds
To dream our imitation Mission dreams.

[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann. The grammatical looseness of these verses, particularly in the second stanza, is very unusual for Virginia's writing.]