Poetry: “The Myth of the Magikarp” by J.D. Isip

The Myth of the Magikarp
or, When I Was a Straight Woman

When someone tells you who they are, so it goes,
you should believe them, and so I did. I believed
the fish-like monsters, their round mouths pulling
in air, pulling in someone like me with their spell
that makes one believe they will get bigger

so I believed their stories about what they could be,
a sleek, serpentine, powerful beast, one I could ride
for the rest of our lives, their muscles contracting
between these thighs, the thighs where they’d sleep
in their unchanged form, deathlike and cold—

by the time I was on Magikarp number 200 or so,
there she was singing along with her Jigglypuff,
and she looked at me with the fish, got quiet, sad,
and asked me how many I had, and when I told her,
she said you’ll need two times more, and trust me

she said, what you get is not what you’ve heard,
not what they promised you, the power, the waves
they say you’ll glide across, the rush of the ocean,
and she took my hand, pushing the fish away, here,
wiggling her fingers in mine, I’ll teach you to sing.

About J.D. Isip

J.D. Isip’s collections include Reluctant Prophets (Moon Tide Press, 2025), Kissing the Wound (Moon Tide Press, 2023), and Pocketing Feathers (Sadie Girl Press, 2015). J.D. teaches in South Texas where he lives with his dogs, Ivy and Bucky.