My Papa's Walt

In the poem of "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke has perfect imagery. I can see a boy being whipped around by his drunk father while his mother stood helplessly and watched. "My mother's countenance/ Could not unfrown itself" (line 7-8) I the first stanza I laughed at the way he described the dance. "But I hung on like death:/Such waltzing was not easy" (line 3-4) I picture then dancing in the kitchen but I think of a wedding when a drunk uncle is making a small child dance. The rhyming in the poem makes the speaker seems to make a joke of this situation. "At every step you missed/ My right ear scraped a buckle" (line 11-12) I just think of the child who does not understand the father who is enjoying the dance but the child is not at all. I don't know why I think this is so funny. Maybe because the child is not being hurt and the father is clearly having a good time. "Then waltzed me off to bed/ Still clinging to your shirt" (line 15-16). I see the child completely relieved that the dancing is over and can just go to bed so he doesn't have to spend anymore time with his father who thinks that the dance was a good time for them both.