My Papa's Waltz

My Papa’s Waltz

by Theodore Roethke

Theodore Roethke

The whiskey on your breath   

Could make a small boy dizzy;   

But I hung on like death:   

Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans   

Slid from the kitchen shelf;   

My mother’s countenance   

Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist   

Was battered on one knuckle;   

At every step you missed

My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head   

With a palm caked hard by dirt,   

Then waltzed me off to bed   

Still clinging to your shirt.

 

 

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Drunk father, little boy clinging onto his drunken father, while mother watches. What image does that give you? I mean watching a drunken father dance around a kitchen, while pans and pots are clanging their way down the shelves...dude, seriously, the dad is like drunk, get up and do something. I mean if the kid were getting abused it's a different story, but if you're getting abused would you stand still in front of your father...clinging onto his shirt? 

Overall, this poem may have different paths to it, depending on how you actually look at it. Abuse really isn't here, I just know for a fact that the father is drunk, while he dances clumsily with his son. Would you really do that? A son that's young, watching his father stumble about? Nah, not so much.