Week 6

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 caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.


         a small boy    ;
     hung on

          until  he
Slid from the         shelf;  
   mother
Could not unfrown

              he
    battered    one knuckle;

          scraped a 


       palm