Harlem
by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
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 The Collected Works of Langston Hughes. Copyright © 2002 by Langston Hughes.
MoSt will post a poem a day by a Black poet through the month of June.