What You Can't Have is a candid exploration of sex, sexuality, and sexualities. Michael V. Smith explores desire, looking at the difference between wants and needs in this collection of poems about longing to belong and acceptance. Some of the poems are concerned with adolescent awareness of sexuality and self while others are concerned with gender transgression. All examine the limits of our cultural norms in a collection that is carnal, corporeally driven, and relishes in the body. Smith uses language that is plain-spoken, artful and yet undecorated.