Poetry by Morgan Boyer

Ode to Betty & Atem

Nothing quite says “It’s time to duel” like vigorously

licking leftover raw egg goop off of a silicone spoon,

sitting in a hunched-over lotus-position as

Atem drew the final card to turn the game

around against one of Marik’s evil henchmen.

The ding of the oven alerted me as I used

the commercial break to bring the bountiful baldies

filled with blueberries out, not bothering to await

their cooling as I rubbed them with butter, downed

them in milk and heard the return of the show’s

music. I ran back downstairs, my sister and I with

crumb-covered faces as we witnessed our favorite

pharoah fuse his monsters and bring the bad guy to their knees.

We owe our Saturday mornings to Atem and Betty Crocker.

A fictional card gaming-playing Ancient Egyptian royal leader

with tri-colored hair & a fictional 1920s brown-bobbed,

red-white polka-dotted dressed housewife

on the back of instant baking mix boxes

even eight-year-olds could use.

Morgan Boyer (she/her) is the author of The Serotonin Cradle (Finishing Line Press, 2018), and a graduate of Carlow University. Boyer has been published in Kallisto Gaia Press, Thirty West Publishing House, Pennsylvania English, and Oyez Review. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA with her family.