GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Gimme an upsweep, Minnie,

With humpteen baby curls.

'Bout time I got some glamour.

I'll show them girls.

Think they so fly a-struttin'

With they wool a-blowin' 'round.

Wait'll they see my upsweep.

That'll jop 'em back on the ground.

Got Madam C. J. Walker's first.

Got Poro Grower next.

Ain't none of 'em worked with me, Min.

But I ain't vexed.

Long hair's out of style anyhow, ain't it?

Now it's tie it up high with curls.

So gimme an upsweep, Minnie.

I'll show them girls.

One reason cats are happier than people

is that they have no newspapers . . .

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 a quarter to nine.

My mother she tells me that Johnnie Mae

Will grow up to be a bad woman.

That George will 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.