Nina Li Coomes is a Japanese and American writer, performer, producer and artist. She was born in Nagoya, raised in Chicago, and currently resides in Boston, MA. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in EATER, Catapult, The Collapsar, RHINO poetry, and The Margins, among other places. You can find more of her work atwww.ninalicoomes.com
en route
we notice it first
on the subway
a jitterbug hush skims
raised heads of chatter
it seems
the train door did not slide shut
fast enough
horsey looking 20 something titters into
her hoof as we sit next to her
boyfriend, aghast
an inside-out joke
the smoking innards of a carcass
on the side of a january highway
we
the deer
caught in her headlights