You Can Have It

In a pivotal moment, the twin says, “You can have it” (Line 4). In his bedroom, his sibling overhears him and sees that “his unshaven face is whitened / like the face of the moon” (Lines 6-7) whose light “streams in the window” (Line 5). Later in the poem, the speaker returns to this image, pleading, “[G]ive me back the moon / with its frail light falling across a face” (Line 39-40). This moonlit image symbols several things. First, the moonlight acts as a spotlight to the poem’s events, highlighting the pivotal “moment” (Line 10) when the twin gave up. Second, the light metaphorically illuminates the sibling, who seems chosen to bear the brunt of the work by some cold outside force or observer. Lastly, the poem compares the brother’s “unshaven face” (Line 6) to “the face of the moon” (Line 7), suggesting a twinning effect that echoes the relationship between the brothers. This connotes the event’s cruciality to their relationship.

The sibling works the night shift at the “ice plant” (Line 17), where he “fed / the chute its silvery blocks” (Lines 18-19). The word “fed” (Line 18) suggests something alive and hungry for the physical labor of the man who is only “twenty” (Line 21).