My Papa's Waltz
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.
Theodore Roethke shows readers his strained relationship with his alcoholic father in “My Papa’s Waltz.” He says even after his father has drunkenly abused him, he still clings to his shirt like any son would do to his father. The fact that Roethke wrote this poem shows that he is probably upset with the way he grew up, but that he loved and cared about his father nonetheless. There is an “ABAB” rhyme scheme throughout the poem.
