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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
Read poems about / on: mother, death, time
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Click here to write your comments about this poem (My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke)
Justin Crouch (5/18/2008 9:51:00 PM)
There is no way that Theodore Roethke was abused. This is a fond memory that he has, and has expressed for the world to see. Drinking before bed, but not getting hammered was a common thing back in the early 1900's.
It is however, quite possible that Otto Roethke wanted to tire out the boy, and get him to bed. There is noting about abuse in this at all. |
Menaly Diietz (3/24/2007 9:38:00 AM)
Theodore Roethke is one of my favorite poets and although the poem seems to confuse people, it is clearly about children abusing their parents. This child does not want to go to bed, and his father tired and battered from work, and also a little drunk, is dancing with the kid to tire him out. The mother is extremely unhappy about this situation because of the mess the two are making. |
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Theodore Roethke
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