Gwendolyn Brooks - 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. 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. T...