Dream Deferred (Monday Poem)

by Langston Hughes


Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore---
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over---
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?


from Whisper and Shout: Poems to Memorize edited by Patrice Vecchione, 2002, Cricket Books