My Papa’s Waltz, by 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 called by dirt,

Then waltzed me off to bed

Still clinging to your shirt.