Friday the 13th
I don't have a poem for you—

            I have an announcement:
Friday the thirteenth is a sacred

            not a dangerous day.
The rumor of this day's curse reverses

            once again what's sacred and profane,

            one more way that women in this wayward age 

            are fucked. And it's not just women out of luck:

            also the body you live in, the soil

            which succors you, the water which washes

            you, the earth cradling your feet.
Regarding Friday the thirteenth, I'm here
            to say:

            there's nothing to fear, do not be afraid.

            Do not capitulate to complicity in the

            conspiracy of fear fomented by some

            shriveled 16th century Christian monks
who devised the idea to name this day

            bad luck, campaigning to tame the lusty 

            country folk and terminate their traditions

            honoring the land. ("Pagans" the Christians

            called them, meaning "peasants," and "civilians"—

            not soldiers in the wars of Christ.)
Friday is and was Freya's day, the sabbath
            day,

            the day to honor Freya, Earth's daughter,

            Venus of the north: she who feeds us from

            the bounty of Her fertile fields, who

            warms the hearth, heats our passion, 

            heartens our home; who blesses our newborn,

            makes our babies hale, guides our spinning hand,

            heals us with Her seeds and herbs.
Thirteen is Freya's sacred number—

            the number of moon­cycles to the year,

            the count of times each year a woman bleeds.
Thirteen cannot be conquered, divided,

            nor compromised. It's wild, eccentric,

            erratic, ecstatic, beyond the tyrant's

            reach, past captivity, a jumping off

            place, the threshold from which we tip

            over into other worlds. Thirteen is the

            triple goddess—maiden, mother, crone—

            standing upon the pinnacle of ten: the

            power of transformation.
On Friday the 13th I'm here to say:

                 Do not be afraid. Do not give way

                 to fearing, or degrading—
woman, moon, body, birth, bleeding, earth.
When you cast us into darkness,

            you empower us to haunt you.

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