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A SONG IN THE FRONT YARD


I've stayed in the front yard all my life.
I want a peek at the back
Where it's rough and untended and hungry weed grows.
A girl gets sick of a rose.


I want to go in the back yard now
And maybe down the alley,
To where the charity children play.
I want a good time today.


They do some wonderful things.
The have some wonderful fun.
My mother sneers, but I say it's fine
How they don't have to go in at quarter to nine.
My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae
Will grow up to be a bad woman.
That George'll be taken to Jail soon or late
(On account of last winter he sold our back gate).


But I say it's fine Honest, I do
And I'd like to be a bad woman, too,
And wear the brave stocking of night-black lace
And strut down the streets with paint on my face.

Written by Gwendolyn Brooks (1917 - 2000)

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