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?
While the other images in this poem imply that a “dream deferred” languishes along with the dreamer, this one-line reevaluation provides a new perspective.  Explosions cause great destruction: likewise, if people feel thwarted in their dreams, their frustration and despair could compel them to cause others pain and kill more dreams, as in a domino effect. Or, people might decide suddenly to fight on behalf of their dreams. 
 The speaker of this poem seems to question his prior perspective on lost dreams, which he had viewed as just sitting in limbo.  He seems almost afraid that, if deferring dreams is like a disease, it could spread across groups of people and destroy wishes on a mass scale. 
 
 The “explosion” could also be one that, while violent and disruptive, produces positive changes of some kind (e.g. a revolution). 
 Finally, though the most of the poem projects a negative tone, the shift at the end of the poem—signaled by the new stanza and the introduction of italics–might suggest a different and possibly positive change. Hughes was a major figure in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance; Harlem was the epicenter for America’s first embraced black arts movement. It was an explosion, so to speak, of dreams.
Harlem What happens to a dream deferred?