Shed De Doe by Mushroom Montoya

Jeremy walks into my home office,

I look up, giving our son a receptive smile.

His eyebrows want to do battle

As they roll their shoulders toward each other.

His words punch his frustration,

“I couldn't find it.

I already looked in the dictionary.

It makes no sense.”

Our son is holding a book

Whose cover displays a bushy, white-haired,

Mustachioed, white man, Samuel Clemmons.

The title is Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Using his thumb to hold the page

Preventing the conundrum from falling out,

Jeremy opens the book

His eyes stomp on the letters.

“It's spelled s h e d d e d o.”

My hand opens, making its request.

His feet slog slowly, elephant style.

He points to his discontent, his frustration.

I gag my grin, quieting it for the moment.

"You can't speed read this Southern author.

It took him too long to say each word

In the sweltering heat of Hannibal, Missouri.

Pretend you are a poor, uneducated, Southern boy

Who just walked into a slave’s home.

It’s winter and bitterly cold.

What does the slave say to you?

Let his words drip out like molasses."

Jeremy’s eyes ask, what?

A deep inhale, a slow exhaust.

"Shed de doe.

It be code out dayah."

We both burst out laughing.