'Your Words Are Pearls' & 'Reservation For Two': Two Poems by December Lace

YOUR WORDS ARE PEARLS

Our thin coats exposing us to bare elements

On a frosty obscure night

Crumpled newspapers vanishing

down the narrowing black alley

Frigid temperatures freezing our breaths,

The pearls of words that drop from your

Lips,

I rush to collect in my black gloved hands

Illuminated in my knitted cupped palm

Visible under the ink sky

An orb of milk in a droplet of ink

Take into my Ebenezer mouth, like communion

Swallow like candy and pills

Chalky sweet granules clinging to my pink throat

All of what you say inside of me

Curing the lonely aches afflicting this crumbling body

Luminescent medicine

Syllables vibrating neon in my veins

Your whispers connecting us in the shadows

---

RESERVATION FOR TWO

Snow colored tablecloths drape fancily over my frosty porcelain legs, just rushed in from the salted sidewalks

The reservation checked in, coat taken too soon, and my arms are suffering

My ropes of hair done up in elaborate knots expose my shoulders and the little knobs of flesh rise like glasses for a toast

until you come to my rescue,

a month in and you already read my shivers

Your palms rub steadily, gently lending their glow to my skin,

chasing away the chills, murmuring promises of what happens after cocktails into my

neck, breath funneling into my collarbone,

condensation coming to a climax–

The waiter doesn’t see, he just brings the ice water

---

December Lace is a former professional wrestler and pinup model. She has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, Pro Wrestling Illustrated, The Molotov Cocktail, Awkward Mermaid, and Rhythm & Bones YANYR Anthology, among others. She loves Batman, burlesque, and horror movies. She can be found on Twitter @TheMissDecember, http://decemberlace.blogspot.com, or in Chicago’s obscure bookshops.