Read Poem: WHAT TO GIVE UP, by Bee Smith

Just give up your fear for Lent this year.
Hold up your hands.
Surrender your terror.
Feel the bands of panic
loosen in your chest.

I know. I know!
It’s not the best of times.
But just think about all those
forty days without your silent fear.
Better than cutting out the beer
or chocolate, though
you might think you are
on the path to career suicide
seeing as all these seem to be built
on daily doses of lethal
intimidation.

Think of it as answering
the hero’s call in the desert,
braving storms, fighting demons.
Accept no imitations.
No cross would be too hard to bear,
no thorny shard would prick your resolve
to its conscience’s very quick.

You’d shrug off tax demands,
VAT, NCT, and all those other levies
apocalyptically breaching the banks of some Mississippi.
Nothing would faze your glacial gaze.
You would be as serene as…