The speaker of “Daddy” is addressing her dead father, whom she had problems with even when he was alive. Throughout “Daddy,” the speaker is trapped by the horrific memories of her father. In the first stanza she says: Any more, black shoe In which I have lived like a foot For thirty years, poor and white, Barely daring to breathe or Achoo A series of metaphors shows the relationship between father and daughter in negative terms. As the poem advances, he is a “black shoe” in which she has “lived like a foot” for thirty years. It is a metaphor for the confinement of her relationship with her father and the state of confinement she 's been placed in by her father and his memory. Even when she tries to marry, “If I’ve killed one man, I’ve