The poem My Papa’s Waltz can be interpreted in different ways. The poem states that papa and his son shared a dance called a waltz. Papa had too much whiskey to drink meaning he had drank too much and could possibly be an alcoholic. The son hung to his father probably because he was frightened . “Like death” implies that this behavior from his father seems to be endless. “Such waltzing was not easy” implies that this action may have occurred many times and it was very difficult to handle or deal with. Pots and pans falling from the shelf being scattered everywhere either be anger or the aftermath of the alcoholic father. The mother was not very happy about the situation. The mother might be depressed and sad watching her son being abused or she possibly does not care at all and is annoyed by the fact that the kitchen is now a mess.…show more content… The injury to papa’s knuckles could be that he works a lot with his hands probably in a greenhouse or he is a fighter. “My right ear scraped a buckle” indicates he was not blaming his father for what had happened because he understood his father was drunk and possibly felt sorry for him. If he wanted to blame his father for what happened he could have said, the buckle scraped my right ear. He knew his father was an alcoholic and things like this usually happened a lot to him but there was nothing he could do to stop it. “ You beat time on my head” means papa was beating his son trying to get him to realize something. Papa’s hands were dirty possibly because he was working outside so there was a lot of dirt on his hand. Papa finally took his son to bed while the son is still holding on to