Gwendolyn Brooks

a song in the front yard
I've stayed in the front yard all of 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.

They 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 MaeWill 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.A

nd I'd like to be a bad woman, too,

And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace

And strut down the streets with pain on my face