You Can Have It

Levine’s poem “You Can Have It” is an elegy to lost youth, crushed by the hard work necessitated by survival. Set in “Detroit” (Line 25) right after World War II, this narrative poem focuses on a pair of working-class siblings engaged in hard physical labor. The poem starts in “1948” (Line 25) but shifts to the speaker’s reflections of 1978. The speaker reflects on his new understanding of hard labor’s effect on his sibling. The speaker notes, “we were twenty” (Lines 21), with the “we” suggesting that the characters are twins (See: Biographical Context). The effect of the twinning of the speaker’s experience with the sibling’s, while not elaborated upon, makes the reflective nature of the poem particularly poignant.

The speaker reveals that “[i]n 1948” (Line 25), he used to work at a bottling plant where he “stacked cases of orange soda […] one gray boxcar at a time” (Lines 19-20). The job felt endless because there were “always two more [boxcars] waiting” (Line 21). The speaker’s sibling worked “[all] night at the ice plant” (Line 17), where he “fed / the chute its silvery blocks” (Lines 17-18). Both jobs require heavy physical lifting. The speaker worked during the daytime while the sibling came home when the “moonlight stream[ed] in the window” (Line 5). Their working lives separated the siblings as one twin would “sleep / long after noon and waken to find [the speaker] gone” (Line 7-8). They were also always “in the wrong clothes, / crusted with dirt / and sweat” (Line 22-24), thus separated from anyone other than the working class. There is a distinct impression that there was little rest or play for either.

The speaker becomes aware of the twin’s frustration at this life when one early morning, the latter falls exhausted onto the “bed […] and his shoes drop one by one” (Line 4). This is the first image in the poem. The boy has had enough—“You can have it” (Line 4), he says—although the speaker does not respond. The sibling’s generalized statement suggests a sense of being fed up with either his job, his life, or both. The daily drudgery feels, in this moment, too much to bear. At first this seems to be a profound image of defeat, but as the poem progresses, the speaker tries to transform it.

“Thirty years” (Line 9) later, at age 50, the speaker realizes he “suddenly […] knew” (Line 10) that “each man / has one brother who dies when he sleeps” (Line 10-11). While some have interpreted this to suggest that the “one brother” (Line 11) has literally died, it can be read to show that each sleeping hour instead brings that sibling closer to death. Further, the sibling “sleeps when he rises to face this life” (Line 12), suggesting moving through the world in rote activity. There is no rest while sleeping nor joy when awake. In understanding this, the speaker finds the experience is twinned: “[E]ach man has one brother” (Line 10-11), he tells us, who does this—but “together they are only one man / sharing a heart that always labors” (Line 14). Work becomes their defining characteristic, causing “hands / [that are] yellow and cracked” (Lines 14-15) and “a mouth that gasps / for breath” (Line 15-16) with the worry, “Am I gonna make it?” (Line 16). This line of dialogue echoes and illuminates the earlier line of “You can have it” (Line 4). Under the weight of the “always” (Line 14) of work, youthful anger and strength have disappeared. At first, the speaker notes, “We were twenty for such a short time” (Lines 21-22) but then, upon reflection amends, “I think now we were never twenty” (Line 24). The harshness of their lives has made youth a fiction.

This feeling of fictionalization is enhanced by the fact that “1948” (Line 25) ceases to feel real: “[T]here was no such year” (Line 29). It seems to have “fallen off all the old newspapers, / calendars, doctors’ appointments, bonds, / wedding certificates, drivers licenses” (Lines 30-32). This is a metaphor for the effect of days going by in a blur, dominated instead by hard physical labor. This passage of time finds further emphasis in the description of the shifting weather: “[S]now turned to ice” (Line 33), then “ice to standing pools” (Line 34), then “bright grass” (line 35) grew, and then, “that grass died” (Line 37). Seasons and years pass, and age takes over the youth that never bloomed. The sibling’s “Am I gonna make it?” (Line 16), spoken from the “mouth that gasps / for breath” (Lines 15-16), suggests that labor is so ceaseless that any life-affirming ferocity is long gone.

In the speaker’s effort to relocate his sibling’s sense of passion, he turns to the language of rewinding time, initially addressing the twin: “I give you back 1948” (Line 37) and “all the years from then to the coming one” (Line 38). This takes the speaker back to the “moment” (Line 10) in the bedroom again. The speaker pleads for a return of his twin’s youthful strength, his “wide shoulders” (Line 42) that could bear things. He also longs for a spiritual renewal: “Give me back the moon” (Line 39), the speaker pleads, and particularly “its frail light falling across a face” (Line 40). This image of illumination is important to the speaker’s vision, and acts like a spotlight, shining on his “young brother, hard / and furious” (Lines 41-42). The speaker longs again for his sibling’s rejection of the hard life he would eventually lead: “Give me back [… his] curse / for God” (Lines 41-43) and his “burning eyes that look upon / all creation” (Line 43-44). Rather than the one who “gasps / for breath” (Line 15-16), the speaker wants to resurrect the fierce youth who said instead, “You can have it” (Line 43-44). The speaker wishes he could restore himself and his twin to a place where a different path could have been taken. The poem centers on this poignant longing for youthful freedom that never occurred.