a+song+in+the+front+yard

a song in the front yard By: Gwendolyn Brooks



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.** (Imagery)

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.** (Imagery)

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 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 stockings of night-black lace**

**And strut down the streets with paint on my face.** (Imagery)