You Can Have It

“You Can Have It” is a love letter to the speaker’s “brother” (Lines 1, 11, 41) as well as an elegy to a missed youth. At first, the speaker’s observations are somewhat objective as they remember how he registered both his own and his twin’s exhaustion, saying, “You can have it” (Line 4). Yet, in the memory, the speaker is unaware of the significance of his brother’s feelings. It is only “thirty years” (Line 9) later that the speaker remembers “that moment” (Line 10) and realizes this was pivotal. “You can have it” (Line 4) was a statement in which the sibling gave up his dreams for a life of work. This incident shaped his “heart” (Line 14) to be a thing that “always labors” (Line 14). From the minutes in that bedroom, through 30 years, the twin has driven himself to exhaustion, asking, “Am I gonna make it?” (Line 16). The speaker’s sympathy for his twin turns to outrage as he remembers how his brother had no youth because it was consumed by the necessity of work. If the speaker could, he would “give [the brother] back 1948” (Line 37) as well as “all the years from then / to the coming one” (Lines 38-39).