Harlem By Langston Hughes

This poem seems like it is able a person who has had a dream but has deferred it....meaning they postponed or delayed it for another time in which they will have their dreams come true and be reality. So then they questioned themselves as to what would happen if the dream is deferred, though at the end when the speaker asks "Or does it explode?" it shows that the word "Deferred" not only means "To postpone, to delay" but it also means "to exempt temporarily from induction into military service." It could relate to the military coming in on the speaker and taking everything away so that the dream will not take place, but instead it will "explode."