Monday, April 2, 2012

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.



Such imagery in so few words. Genius!!


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