My Papa's Waltz, by Theodore Roethke

The whiskey on your breath

could I 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 my 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.