Pardon my heart if it ruins your party. 

It’s a large, American heart and has had

a good deal to drink. It’s a pretty bad 

dancer—too much feeling, too little technique.

It may sing some godless hymns, about ousting 

armies of loneliness, about marching

victorious to wives and towns beneath 

a heart-colored dusk. Pardon my heart

if it closes its eyes for hours, 

whispering rapture over and over.

Pardon my heart if it laughs too loudly, 

or if it tells many of its stories

too ardently. Pardon my heart if it rests
an arm across you or your friends’ shoulders—

touch allows my heart to trust that it’s not

imagining your company’s loveliness.

Pardon my heart if you have to kick it out. 

After you’ve muzzled the music and brightened

the lights to tidy, my heart will ignore 

and keep doing its little two-step, aglow

in the middle of the room, never 

happier to have nowhere else to go.