On The Drive Back To Durango, I Wake Up In Taos Poem by Leah Browning

Immediately, the landscape is wrong,
all shades of brown, and you are sheepish,
sure that you must have missed a sign

or two. I am on my way back to college
after a break, and I am furious to find myself
still in New Mexico, off in the wrong direction,

when I should already be in Colorado,
sitting at my desk, studying for exams.
I want to go back to that moment now, to be

the girl I once was, in those months before we married.
I would tell you, “It was a harmless mistake.”
I would tell you, “It could have happened to anyone.”

We would leave the car and walk through the streets
holding hands. I want to superimpose this image,
obscuring the one where the girl takes the wheel

and turns them around, driving away from the unexpected
city with a mouth as sour as vinegar.