My Papa's Waltz
The manuscript of My Papa's Waltz. The manuscript reveals meaningful changes Roethke made to the poem. For example, in the second line he replaced the word "girl" with "boy."
The stairs are not only centrally located in the house, but also in the poem. Various parts of the house including the kitchen, the stairs, and the bed become characters in high drama set up in the poem and parttake of the agony the terrified boy experiences.
And here is the finished poem:
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.