"My Papa's Waltz" Explication

In “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, dancing is being used as an extended metaphor for their father-son relationship. In the first stanza, the speaker shows that he is not having fun: the boy is dizzy from alcohol fumes, he is struggling to hold onto his father’s twirling frame, and this makes the dancing itself extremely challenging. The line “But I hung on like death” begins to form a scene, and while someone might at first imagine a boy happily standing on his father’s feet, this implies he’s being forced to cling to him so he doesn’t get thrown off. This makes the poem chaotic and violent as you experience the small boys panic, and the father’s unmindful attitude. 
In the third stanza, our narrator talks about his discomfort and the mistakes his father keeps making. Everytime the dad misses a step, hits the counter, or knocks over a pan, the boy's ear scrapes against his father's belt buckle. This makes me think of how people beat their children with a belt, and it is metaphor for his Papa’s everyday mistakes, which hurt his kid in physical and nonphysical ways. Another image the poem inserts is the boy's father’s battered knuckles, which could also be representing physical violence. This stanza is a metaphor for his Papa’s everyday tribulations, whether it be with alcohol or his temper, that hurt his kid in physical and nonphysical ways.
Finally, in the fourth stanza, the father is whisking his kid to bed while he clings to the tall man's shirt.  This shows that, even though the father is a rough man with abusive tendencies, the little boy doesn’t want the dance to end. Obviously the father is suffering from alcoholism, and this could be concluding the metaphor with a more final ending- death. Once they stop dancing, the father tries to put the boy to bed, but he adheres to his clothing, not willing to let go. Despite all of his flaws, the boy doesn’t want his father to leave him with any kind of finality.