My Papa's Waltz

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

Today in class, we read and analyzed a poem called My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke, and even held a fake jury to determine whether the boy in the story was being abused. Almost everyone in our class had different ideas on what happened, based solely on the poem and what it says happened. We all agreed on one thing: that the father was drunk.
Although I think that the father in the poem could be interpreted as abusive in some parts, such as the line that states "my right ear scraped a buckle" or "you beat time on my head", I know that I've spent times with my whole family on a holiday where they get drunk, and dancing and knocking over some kitchen supplies isn't that harmful. hat I think that the poem is about more is how the little boy loved his father, no matter what he did. He started the poem by saying in the third line, "But I hung on like death" and ended, the last line being "Still clinging to your shirt", although the mother seems upset about the father knocking over some pans.