Father’s Day – My Papa’s Waltz (Theodore Roethke & Charles LeDray)

Theodore Roethke, images Charles LeDray. From Sperone Westwater except portrait of the artist.

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.

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.