By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
"Can't Tell" measures a life against labor, dirt, family memory, and the uneasy discovery that being thought rich can be its own kind of trap.
The poem keeps balancing worth against work, as if a shovel might tell the truth more clearly than speech. Grandpa's refusal to leave his labor in the dirt gives the speaker an inherited standard he can barely meet. The last turn is sharp and bitter: the fantasy of richness feels both false and strangely accurate because expectation itself has already altered the family story.
Can't Tell: dignity of labor read through grandpa wouldn't leave his work in the dirt. The you thought we were rich sting is softened into were not you so right.