What Changed
By Adela Najarro
After I changed one husband for another, I changed my shoes. I changed my earrings. My dreams changed, too. I began slamming doors and shouting—No! A blue Cadillac crashed while driving Camino Real. The only part that stayed were words that swam in cool ocean water. After I changed one husband for another, I cast a spell in a dream. I changed my shoes. I changed my earrings. I changed the locks, the bedspread, sheets, and towels. Sadness and loss changed to dancing a cha-cha two step under a moon and a star. I began walking a mountain trail filled with eucalyptus and blue jays. After changing one husband for another, I heard a moon and a star laugh in a twilight sky. I changed my shoes. I changed my earrings. I changed the locks, clouds fanned toward mountains, rain fell onto asphalt, and leaves stuck wet like a sentence that has too many participles and lacks concrete nouns. After changing one husband for another I changed my shoes. I changed my earrings. I changed the words. The weather changed from autumn to winter and I learned to rest my head on a shoulder. I heard a moon and a star laugh in a twilight sky. I cast a spell, so the words that swam in deep waters could seep out from wounds as letters rising into space.
Adela Najarro's fifth poetry collection, Variations in Blue, was selected by the Letras Latinas/ Red Hen Collaborative for publication in 2025. The California Arts Council recognized her as an established artist for the Central California Region, appointing her as an Individual Artist Fellow. Her extended family left Nicaragua and arrived in San Francisco during the 1940s; after the fall of the Somoza regime, the last of the family settled in the Los Angeles area.
04/10 / Poetry Reading and Conversation with visiting poet-in-residence Chloe Martinez and local poet Ximena Gómez / The BBar at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7-8:30 pm EST / Free
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I love the repetition too! and how it builds on the same scaffold though that scaffold yields a different turn each time. thank you, Adela!
I love the repetition in this poem, also:
"and leaves stuck wet
like a sentence that has too many
participles and lacks
concrete nouns."