The Sixty-Five Million

Kenzie McCorvy

March 1, 2026

My husband and my son play in the yard;

I watch them, holding close my trembling guard.

A warning tightens deep within my gut.

Should I draw in my loves and bar them shut?

Will one day come a knock on my front door?

Taken. Gone. Sacrifices for the war.

A smear of mud upon the shaken floor

Will trace the boots that dragged them out before,

Will show the path by which they’re forced to go

While crying out in fear I cannot know.

Suspicion of their right to simply be

Is all the media will ever see. 

I fear the way a stranger bends his gaze

Too long, too cold, assessing subtle ways.

The foods we cook, the way he says my name,

The lullabies in Spanish, soft and plain.

All these become, beneath the nation’s eye,

A list of crimes that none can verify.

Though papers rest in drawers and bear their names,

What good is paper when it meets the flame?

From bigotry disguised as rule and right

Comes fire, stealing calm from where I rise.

But, what are rights when power blinds the eye? 

Proud boys with guns and loyalty to buy.

Kenzie McCorvy is a Southeast Texas native and student at Lamar University where she majors in English and minors in writing. When not writing and studying, she is the mother of a one-year-old son.