
An abusive relationship between a parent and child is as horrible as it is destructive to a child’s mental and physical health.  “My Papas Waltz” uses negative words and phrases to show the abusive relationship between the father and his family to convey sorrowful emotions in the reader.  “The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy” has many examples of this idea.  Firstly, generally whiskey on someone’s breath has a negative connotation, especially on the breath of a father.  This gives the reader a sense of irresponsibility, apathy, and fear for the family this father belongs to.  This line continues to mention how a small boy would be made dizzy by the breath of the father.  This will make the reader assume that this irresponsible father is in the presence of a small child, which will illustrate the hopelessness of the situation.  The use of the word “dizzy” is the authors attempt to revel to the reader the severity of the father’s drunkenness.  

“But I hung on like death” is a striking line, for it is only the beginning of the poem, and the reader can sense the situation is life threatening. this is also the point in the poem where the reader knows for sure that this is an abusive scenario.  The reader learns from this line that the boy in the poem is hanging on to his father for his life, illustrating to the reader the fear the boy must be facing.  The line “such waltzing was not easy.” Acts as an explanation for the previous line, emphasizing the difficultly the child is facing, and giving the reader a shocking image of a child clutching to his drunk father. 

This scene is enhanced with the word “romped,” giving the reader a feeling of hostility and violence.    The whole line reads: “we romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf,” illustrating a brutish image of the father with his son.  The reader can imagine a terrifying scene of the father tossing his son in a drunken tantrum, while son hangs on for his life.  The author mentions the pans sliding off the kitchen shelf to give imagery to the abusive situation.  

The first mention of another person in this poem is in line seven, reveling the mother of the boy who is being attacked by the father.  The line reads: “my mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself.” The mother appears to not be acting against her husband’s actions, but not out of apathy for her child’s wellbeing, but because she’s so afraid of her husband, and making the situation worse.  This will inform the reader of how serious the situation is. one will find the use of the word “unfrown” to be interesting, for it seems like frowning is an inflammatory reaction to the sight of her own child being abused.  One would think that she would be crying, or frantic.  This will ultimately lead the reader to believe that this underwhelmed reaction is a hint to the fact that this isn’t the first time this has happened.

“The hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle” is one of the two most violent lines in this poem.  The “battered knuckle” confirms to the reader that the father probably had a night of violence and fighting in bars, conveying him to be an aggressive and angry drunk.  This gives the reader many possibilities to where the battered knuckle originated.  The author draws attention to the father holding the wrist of his son.  This illustrates the powerlessness the child has in this “waltz” by being literally shackled to his father, and forced to participate in his destructive dance. 

In line eleven, the use of the word “missed” is interesting.  The full line reads “at every step you missed,” leaving the reader an image of a stumbling drunk, tossing his child around with his own body weight. The boy is trying to keep himself steady, but his drunken father continues to knock him down. This image is made more clear as the poem continues with “my right ear scraped a buckle.”  This draws attention to how young the child might be.  The child is as tall as his father’s belt buckle, showing how powerless the child is in comparison to his father.   

The line “you beat time on my head with a palm caked hard by dirt” illustrates to the reader that the father has been out for a long time, and can assume he has been drunk for a long time, and has a long night of stumbling.  The author hints that the father may have been out on the street, falling on the grass making himself dirty. The poem continues with: “you beat time on my head.” The author is implying that the father is wearing a watch on the wrist of the hand that he’s beating his son with, adding to the trauma of the blows. 

The phrase “off to bed” is interestingly used at the end of the poem.  It can literally mean the father put his child to bed, but in the context of this poem, the reader can assume the child was knocked out during the violent waltz being forced on the child.  The evidence for this theory is in the line prior to the last, explaining how the father “beat time” over the child’s head.  This will assure the reader that the situation the child is in is a hopeless one, leaving the reader an upsetting image of child abuse from a drunk father.  
