There’s a deer on a tavern wall
in Pennsylvania, Christmas lights
blinking behind the bar.
A woman and a man
are slowly dancing, hanging on
to everything, the rainy hills,
a truck knifing through the fog,
a dog staring hard
at a football from the end
of thirty feet of galvanized chain.
Hanging on and on
to that little buzz they have.
The song ends, the couple laughs.
They are making nothing great again—
they know it too, that’s the joke.
The deer never blinks.